1910.) ° A Persian Account of the Begining of Idolatry. 
British public, than by publishing the second 
volume of my Mechanics separately 5 that 
it only wanted one thing to make it compiete, 
namely, an Essay on Wheel Carriages, and 
that he should be much gratified if I would 
adopt the one lie had inserted in his new edi- 
tion of Ferguson’s Lectures ; this, however, 
I did not adopt, because I thought his theory 
ancorrect. : 
sree 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
An account of the BEGINNING of 1D0- 
LATRY amongst the sons of ADAM; 
translated from the PERSIAN HISTORY 
of KHONDEMECR, and originally pub- 
lished at cALCUTTA, in the MISCEL- 
LANY Of MR. GLADWIN. — 
FYNHIS subject having given rise to a 
variety of conjectures, and as this 
abridgment would not contain all the 
traditions that have been produced in 
support of those opinions, I shall only 
deliver, in a summary manner, one of 
them, which appears to be nearest to 
truth, 
It is related, that Enoch had an in- 
timate friend, who had been instructed 
by hearing his philosophical discourses ; 
and after Enoch’s ascension into Hea- 
ven, this friend bewailed the separation 
with Jamentations and groaus, so that 
his days were spent in grief and misery. 
This having come to the knowledge of 
Satan, he went to him, and said, * If 
you desire it of me, I will make for you 
an image, which shall be such an exact 
representation of Enoch, that fiom 
beholding it, your mind shall be relieved 
from its present distress.” The man 
accepted of Satan’s proposal, who per- 
formed his promise; and the grief of the 
friend of Enoch was greatly mitigated 
at the sight of the image. And he 
placed the image in a room of his house, 
where no one went but himself, and 
every evening and morning he comforted 
himself with the sight thereof, | 
It happened that the friend of Enoch 
died in that room, where be had placed. 
the image. And when, after some days, 
he had not been seen by his neighbours, 
they came to search his house, and found 
him dead by the side of the idol. The 
men were astonished at the sight, and 
immediately Satan appeared amongst 
them, in a human shape, and said unto 
them, ‘¢ Enoch and this man, who was 
his friend, worshipped this image, who 
is the Lord of the universe; on which 
account they obtained their wislies.” 
‘The temptation of the devil baving made 
impression upon his audience, they each 
37 
of them formed an idol like unto that 
image, and gave themselves. up to ido- 
latry. aie 
The son of Lamech, the son of Me- 
thusalem, ‘the son of Enoch.—He was 
the first prophet who denounced unto 
the unbelievers the punishments of hell; 
and he was the first by whose curse a 
multitude of them perished. Iu the day 
of resurrection, he will be the second 
person raised from the grave. No 
prophet lived to so great an age as 
Noah. ee | 
“The nations being at this time uni- 
versally addicted to the sins of giving 
companions to God, worshipping of idols, 
blasphemy, and every other: species of 
wickedness, God raised up the prophet 
‘Noah, and sent him to exhort them to 
repentance. According to tradition, he 
continued for the space of nine hundred 
and fifty years, to pomt’ out ‘the ‘true 
road to the sons of Adam ; at the expirat 
tion of which period, finding only eighty 
persons that had faith: in his doctrines, 
and experiencing great ‘trouble and vex- 
ation from the unbelievers, he despaired 
of effecting their reformation; and there> 
fore prayed God to extirpate every soul 
of them ‘from the face of the earth, 
God having approved thereof, a voice 
came unto Noah, saying, “ Plant the 
Sabin tree, and employ thyself in making 
an ark; for I will entirely destroy thesé 
people with water, and commit them all 
to the flames of heil.” 
It isrelated, thac Gabriel brought unto 
Noah a young sapling of the Sabin tree, 
and instructed hina’ how to plant it. 
After forty years growth, when that 
tree was arrived ‘at’ perfection, Noah 
felled it, and when it was dry he em- 
ployed himself in baildiug the ark. 
The ark consisted of three stories; the 
upper one was allotted for the birds; in 
the bottom story, were placed every kind 
of beast if pairs; and the middle apart- 
ment was the habitation of Noah and his 
family, being in all eighty persons, And 
Noah, at the command of God, having 
put the body of Adam into a coflin, car- 
nied it with him into the ark, sa 
And at that time, the sun, the moon, 
and the planets, came into conjunction 
ia a watery sign, when, by command of 
the high God, the waters continued to 
rise out of the earth, and the rain fell 
from the heavens incessantly, for the 
space of forty days and forty nights, 
till the whole earth was delaged. It is 
related that Noah bad an idolatrous son,» 
named Yiam, (also called Kanaan), who, 
slabs aah notwithstandig 
