Page:Four Dissertations - David Hume (1757).djvu/71

 of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloath lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin. There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.

Getes, commonly called immortal, from their steddy belief of the soul's immortality, were genuine theists and unitarians. They affirmed Zamolxis, their deity, to be the only true god; and asserted the worship of all other nations to be addressed to mere fictions and chimeras. But were their religious principles any more refined, on account of these magnificent pretensions? Every fifth year they sacrifiedsacrificed [sic] a human victim, whom they sent as a messenger to their deity, in order to inform him of their wants and necessities. And when it thundered, they were so provoked, that, in order to return the defiance, they let fly arrows at him, and declined not the combat as unequal. Such at least is the account, which Herodotus gives of the theism of the immortal Getes.