220 SUPERSTITION. [ix. 



Was not the wasp-king angry with them ? Had not 

 he deserted them ? He must be appeased ; he must 

 have his revenge. They would take a captive, and 

 offer him to the wasps. So did a North American 

 tribe, in their need, some forty years ago ; when, 

 because their maize-crops failed, they roasted alive a 

 captive girl, cut her to pieces, and sowed her with 

 their corn. I would not tell the story, for the horror 

 of it, did it not bear with such fearful force on my 

 argument. What were those Eed Men thinking of ? 

 What chain of misreasoning had they in their heads 

 when they hit on that as a device for making the crops 

 grow ? Who can tell ? Who can make the crooked 

 straight, or number that which is wanting ? As said 

 Solomon of old, so must we "The foolishness of fools 

 is folly." One thing only we can say of them, that 

 they were horribly afraid of famine, and took that 

 means of ridding themselves of their fear. 



But what if the wasp tribe had no captives ? They 

 would offer slaves. What if the agony and death of 

 slaves did not appease the wasps ? They would offer 

 their fairest, their dearest, their sons and their 

 daughters, to the wasps ; as the Carthaginians, in like 

 strait, offered in one day 200 noble boys to Moloch, 

 the volcano-god, whose worship they had brought out 

 of Syria ; whose original meaning they had probably 

 forgotten ; of whom they only knew that he was a 

 dark and devouring being, who must be appeased with 

 the burning bodies of their sons and daughters. And 

 so the veil of fancy would be lifted again, and the 

 whole superstition stand forth revealed as the mere 

 offspring of bodily fear. 



But more : the survivors of the conquest might, 



