ng. Light and darkness, the seasons, earth,
air, water, all had a separate deity to preside over and control their
special services. They offered sacrifices to these deities as they
desired their co-operation or favor in some enterprise to be undertaken.

"In remote antiquity, we read of a great General about to set out upon
the sea to attack the army of another nation. In order to propitiate the
god of the ocean, he had a fine chariot built to which were harnessed
two beautiful white horses. In the presence of a vast concourse of
people collected to witness the ceremony, he drove them into the sea.
When they sank out of sight it was supposed that the god had accepted
the present, and would show his gratitude for it by favoring winds and
peaceful weather.

"A thousand years afterward history speaks of the occurrence derisively,
as an absurd superstition, and at the same time they believed in and
lauded a more absurd and cruel religion. They worshipped an imaginary
being who had created and possessed absolute control of everything. Some
of the human family it had pleased him to make eminently good, while
others he made eminently bad. For those whom he had created with evil
desires, he prepared a lake of molten fire into which they were to be
cast after death to suffer endless torture for doing what they had been
expressly created to do. Those who had been created good were to be
rewarded for following out their natural inclinations, by occupying a
place near the Deity, where they were to spend eternity in singing
praises to him.

"He could, however, be persuaded by prayer from following his original
intentions. Very earnest prayer had caused him to change his mind, and
send rain when he had previously concluded to visit the country with
drouth.

"Two nations at war with each other, and believing in the same Deity,
would pray for a pestilence to visit their enemy. Death was universally
regarded as a visitation of Providence for some offense committed
against him instead of against the laws of nature.

"Some believed that prayer and donations to the church or priest, could
induce the Deity to take their relatives from the lake of torment and
place them in his own presence. The Deity was prayed to on every
occasion, and for every trivial object. The poor and indolent prayed for
him to send them food and clothes. The sick prayed for health, the
foolish for wisdom, and the revengeful besought the Deity to consign all
th