ACCOUNT OP THE PRINCIPAL HEATHEN GODS. 275 



by oral traditions, or written records. Fable is a creature 

 of the human imagination, and owes its birth to that love of 

 the marvellous, by which man is so peculiarly distinguished. 

 Many circumstances conspired to extend and establish the 

 empire of fable. The legislature employed fiction as the 

 most effectual means of civilizing a rude world ; philoso- 

 phers, poets, and musicians, made this a vehicle of instruc- 

 tion to the savage tribes. A fondness for fable, and her atr 

 tendants allegory and personification, early characterized 

 the Orientals. The boldness and the extravagance of their 

 mythology are to be attributed, in a great measure, to the 

 genial warmth of the climate, and to the fertility of the soil ; 

 to the face of nature perpetually blooming around them ; 

 and to the opportunity they had of contemplating the heaven 

 ly bodies, continually shining under a cloudless sky. These 

 were soon considered as the residence of Divine intelligence, 

 and worshipped, together with the elements, as deities. The 

 historians of antiquity were all poets. To immortalize the 

 heroes, whose deeds they described, they elevated them to 

 the skies, and bestowed on them the names of the celestial 

 luminaries. The sculptor and the painter exercised all their 

 skill to encourage this strange delusion. The use of hiero- 

 glyphics was another fertile source of error. The minutest 

 animals and plants were worshipped as emblems of Deity. 



Questions. — 1. What does mythology comprehend? 2. What is 

 Fable ? 3. By whom, and for what ends, was fiction employed .? 4. 

 What characterized the Orientals, or eastern nations ? 5. What oc- 

 casioned their peculiar mythology ? 6. Why did ancient historians 

 encourage mythology J 7. To what other causes is this delusion to 

 bo attributed? 



LESSON 127. 



Account of the principal Heathen Gods. 



Before the birth of our Saviour, the Jews were the only 

 nation of the v/orld who worshipped the true God. All the 

 other nations worshipped different imaginary beings, which 

 exisfeed only in their absurd and ridiculous fancies. Most 

 of these false gods, however, have now become forgotten, 

 together with the nations that believed in them ; but it is 



