Page:Letters of Life.djvu/182

170 nations, the Assyrians and Egyptians, pursued it with avidity. They debased it to superstition by their theories of judicial astrology. The worship of the heavenly bodies was the prevalent form of idolatry in the East. Perceiving them to have some influence over vegetable life, they inferred an invisible agency over the constitution and fortunes of man.

To strike at the root of this error, Moses informs Israel that Jehovah formed them like other masses of inert matter, and sent them forth to their appointed orbits, for the service, not the worship of His intelligent creatures. In his valedictory, just before the death-stroke, he again reminds them that those luminaries, which they were moved ignorantly to adore, were ordained by the Almighty Maker as servants to every beholder, without regard to rank, for "He hath divided them to all nations under heaven."

Still the chosen people did not purify themselves from this idolatry. The prophet Jeremiah upbraids them with pouring out offerings to the moon, and bidding their children participate as to the "queen of heaven." Amos, the inspired herdsman of Tekoah, reproves them concerning the "star of their god," and their tabernacles of imagery, and warns them to "seek Him who maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning." He is quoted by the martyr Stephen in his last bold and eloquent appeal: "Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of