ges. (Lactantius, b. 5, ch. 21.)

As respects the manner in which they worshiped their gods, Alexander, in
his Dierum Genialium, b. 6, ch. 26, insists that the most odious thing
in their history was the effusion of human blood in the service of their
gods. This same author says, "This unnatural, barbarous practice spread
itself well nigh over the known world; it was in use among the Trojans,
as it seems from Virgil's lines touching AEneas:

"Their hands behind their backs he bound whom he had destined
A sacrifice unto the ghosts, and on whose flames to shed
Their blood he purposed."--_AEnead._

Some ignorant infidels seem at a great loss to understand why the Lord
should order the groves and altars of the heathen destroyed. (Again and
again their groves were cut down.) The children of Israel were to make
no offerings in the groves. If infidels will only exercise common sense
inside of the history of the worship of Priapus and Berecynthia, they
will cease fretting over the destruction of those beautiful forests.
Those groves were the most corrupt places upon the earth, places of
retirement from the altar into prostitution, carried on as a matter of
worship pleasing to Priapus. Here, on account of becoming modesty, the
half can not be told. The removal of nuisances in our own country is
conducted upon the same principles upon which groves were destroyed by
the Israelites.

Lycurgus dedicated an image to laughter, to be worshiped as a god, and
this is said to be "the only law he ever made pertaining to religion."
While his great object was to make warriors, he ordained some things
noted for the education of youth. He ordained other laws so much in
favor of lust and all carnality of the worst kind, that it might justly
be said he made his entire commonwealth ludicrous. He instituted
wrestlings, dances and other exercises of boys and girls naked, to be
done in public at divers times of the year, in the presence both of
young and old men. Adultery was also approved and permitted by the laws
of Lycurgus. Plato and Aristotle advocated community of women, of goods
and possessions, to the end that no man should have anything peculiar to
himself, or know his own children. This was ordained by Plato, in order
to establish in the commonwealth such a perfect unity that no man might
be able to say, that is thine, or this is mine.

Aristotle, in the second book of his "_Politiques_," sets forth many
other detestable things