ess named Beltha, supposed to be the Venus of
the Greeks. The Sabeans were the principal worshippers of this
goddess; and such was their devotion to her, that they regularly
presented to her a portion of their plunder.

The religion of the Carthaginians and Tyrians was horrid and
barbarous. Nothing of moment was undertaken without consulting the
gods, which was done in various ridiculous ways. Hercules was the god
in whom the people placed most confidence. He was invoked before they
went on any important expedition; and when their armies were
victorious, sacrifices were offered to him. One of the chief deities
that they worshipped was Urania, or the moon, to whom they appealed
when overtaken by calamities, such as drought, excessive rain,
destructive hail, thunder, and dangerous storms. Urania was the queen
of heaven mentioned in the Scriptures, to whom even the Jewish women
offered cakes, etc. Carthaginians, in worshipping Saturn, offered up
human sacrifices to him. Even princes and other great men were wont,
in times of distress, to sacrifice their most beloved children to this
deity. People who had not any children of their own, purchased infants
that they might offer them as victims to this idol, with the view of
inducing him to fulfil their desires. Diodorus relates that when
Agathocles was going to besiege Carthage, the people imputed all their
misfortunes to the anger of Saturn, because, that instead of offering
up to him children nobly born, he had been fraudulently put off with
the offspring of slaves and foreigners. To atone for past
shortcomings, two hundred children of the best families in Carthage
were sacrificed, and further, to obtain the god's favour, three
hundred adult citizens immolated themselves.

Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, was an idolator, as were also his
descendants. Nineveh was the seat of his empire. As the sun and moon
became early objects of worship among the Assyrians, so in later days
they adored the fire as their substitute,--a form of worship that was
common among the ancients in many lands. The Assyrians published
abroad that the gods of other nations could not stand before their
fire-gods. A competition took place. A vast number of idols were
brought from foreign nations, but as they were composed of wood, the
god Ur (or fire) consumed them. After many contests, an Egyptian
priest discovered a plan of destroying the reputation of this idol,
which had become the terror of alie