hunt, nor marry a wife, contemptuously
replied, that instead of wishing to go there, he should deem his
residence in such a place as the greatest possible calamity. Many not
only rejected such a destiny for themselves, but were indignant at the
attempt to decoy their children into such a comfortless region.

All nations of the earth have had their heavens. As Moore observes:

"A heaven, too, ye must have, ye lords of dust--
A splendid paradise, poor souls, ye must:
That prophet ill sustains his holy call
Who finds not heavens to suit the tastes of all.
Vain things! as lust or _vanity_ inspires,
The heaven of each is but what each desires."

_Heaven_ was born of the sky,[391:1] and nurtured by cunning priests,
who made man a coward and a slave.

_Hell_ was built by priests, and nurtured by the fears and servile
fancies of man during the ages when dungeons of torture were a
recognized part of every government, and when God was supposed to be an
infinite tyrant, with infinite resources of vengeance.

_The devil_ is an imaginary being, invented by primitive man to account
for the existence of evil, and relieve God of his responsibility. The
famous Hindoo _Rakshasas_ of our Aryan ancestors--the dark and evil
_clouds_ personified--are the originals of all devils. The cloudy shape
has assumed a thousand different forms, horrible or grotesque and
ludicrous, to suit the changing fancies of the ages.

But strange as it may appear, the god of one nation became the devil of
another.

The rock of Behistun, the sculptured chronicle of the glories of Darius,
king of Persia, situated on the western frontier of Media, on the
high-road from Babylon to the eastward, was used as a "holy of holies."
It was named _Bagistane_--"the place of the _Baga_"--referring to
Ormuzd, chief of the Bagas. When examined with the lenses of linguistic
science, the "_Bogie_" or "_Bug-a-boo_" or "_Bugbear_" of nursery lore,
turns out to be identical with the Slavonic "_Bog_" and the "_Baga_" of
the cuneiform inscriptions, both of which are names of the _Supreme
Being_. It is found also in the old Aryan "_Bhaga_," who is described in
a commentary of the _Rig-Veda_ as the lord of life, the giver of bread,
and the bringer of happiness. Thus, the same name which, to the _Vedic_
poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the modern Russian,
suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English associated with an
ugly