PAG 
rejoices nature, and his nod shakes tlie 
foundation of Olympus. Surrounding the 
throne of their Sovereign, the other divini- 
ties quaff nectar from a cup, presented 
them by the youngand beautiful Hebe. In 
the middle of the great circle shines, with 
distinguished lustre, the unrivalled beauty 
of Venus, alone adorned with a splendid 
girdle, in which the graces and sports for _ 
ever play ; and in her hand is a smiling 
boy, whose power is universally acknow- 
ledged by heaven and earth. Music, poetry, 
dancing, and the liberal arts, aie all in- 
spired by one or other of the nine muses ; 
.while the votaries of martial glory derive 
their courage and success from Mars, the 
god of battles. Such is a general outline of 
the pleasing and inoffensive part of the fa- 
bulous theology of the Pagan world. On 
Ihe other hand, as we have already inti- 
mated, many of tire gods of the ancients 
possessed attributes at once disgraceful to, 
and unworthy of deity, and hurtful to the 
interests of morality and human happiness. 
Jupiter himself set an example of lust ; and 
Bacchus was worshipped with cruel and 
obscene revellings. 
Many, however, of the heathen writers 
condemned this part of their theology ; 
amongst which are Sanchoniatho, the Phoe- 
nician ; and among the Greeks, Orpheus, 
Hesiod, and Pherecyde. 
The natural theology of the Pagans was 
studied and taught by the philosophers, who 
rejected the multiplicity of gods introduced 
by the poets, and brought their theology to 
a more rational form. Some of them seem 
to have possessed considerable knowledge 
respecting the unity of the Supreme Deity : 
yet even Socrates, the best man and wisest 
of the philosophers of the Pagan world, so far 
yielded to the prejudices and practices of 
the age in which he lived, as to order his 
friends, just before his death, to sacrifice a 
cock to Esculapius, the god of physic. 
'J'he political or civil theology of the 
Pagans was instituted by legislators, states- 
men, and politicians. This chiefly respected 
their temples, altars, sacrifices, and rites of 
worship, and was properly their idolatory ; 
the care of which belonged to the priests, 
who wqre servants of the state. These 
ceremonies, &c. were enjoined the com- 
monalty to keep them in subjection, to the 
civil power. Such was the religion of the 
greater part of the world before the pro- 
mulgation of Christianity ; and such still, in 
some form or other, is the religion of those 
parts of the world, containing a population 
PAG 
of about 420 millions of souls ; or above 
one-half of the inhabitants of the whole 
earth, where tlie gospel is not preached, 
either in its purity, or as corrupted by the 
doctrines of Mahomet. The Missionaries 
employed for the conversion of the heathen, 
though very zealous and very numerous, 
have hitherto made comparatively little 
progress. The Foreign and British Bible 
Society may possibly have some beneficial 
elfects in enlightening the darkness of the 
pagan world ; but, we are persuaded, nothing 
but conquest and civilization, short of mi- 
racle itself, will ever prove effectual in the 
extirpation of heathenism, and- the final 
establishment of Christianity. 
PAGE, a youth of state retained in the 
family of a prince or great personage, as 
an honourable servant, to attend in visits of 
ceremony, do messages, bear up trains, 
robes, &c. and at the same time to have a 
genteel education, and learn his exercises. 
The pages in the King's houshold are vari- 
ous, and have various offices assigned them, 
as pages of honour, pages of the presence 
cliamber, pages of the back stairs, &c. 
PAGEANT, a triumphal car, chariot, 
arch, or other like pompous decoration, va- 
riously adorned with colours, flags, &c, 
carried about in public shews, processions, 
&c. 
PAGOD, or Pagoda, a name whereby 
the East Indians call the temple in which 
they worship their gods. Before they build 
a pagod, they consecrate the ground as fol- 
lows : after having inclosed it with boards 
or palisadoes, when the grass is grown on 
tire ground they turn an ash coloured cow 
into it, who stays there a whole day and 
night ; and as cow-dung is thought by the 
Indians to be of a very sacred nature, they 
.search for this sacred deposit, and having 
found it, they dig there a deep pit, inte 
which they put a marble-pillar, rising con- 
siderably above the surface of the earth. 
On this pillar they place the image of the 
god to whom the pagod is to be conse- 
crated. After this the pagod is built round 
the pit, in which the pillar is fixed. The pa- 
god usually consists of three parts, the first 
is a vaulted roof supported on stone or 
marble columns. It is adorned with images, 
and, being open, all persons without distinc- 
tion are allowed to enter it: the second 
part is filled with grotesque and monstrous 
figures, and no body is allowed to enter it 
but the bramibs themselves : the third is a 
kind of chancel, in.which the statue of the 
deity is placed : it is shut up with a very 
