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206 and great imperfection in heathen opinions and heathen worship. Such we find to have been the fact. Certain of the existence of a God, yet uncertain of the mode of His existence, it was natural that the human mind should run into a thousand vagaries apd a thousand errors. It was natural that mankind should fancy that they had found God in those parts of the material universe where His attributes are most displayed. Hence, the most ancient species of idolatry is said to have been that which deified the heavenly bodies, the sun and moon and the hosts of heaven. The sun is perhaps the brightest emblem of God, except the human soul. To us he is, in fact, the mightiest instrument, as it were, the right hand of the benignity of the Most High. He riseth, and the shadows of night flee away. Joy and beauty go forth to meet him in the morning. At his call universal life riseth, as it were, from a universal death. He draweth aside the curtains of darkness and sayeth unto man, Come forth! He shineth, and the face of nature is glad. He hideth his face, and all things mourn. He withdraweth from the western sky, and darkness resumes her ancient dominion, and all things seem to wait his return. The soul itself, as it were, deprived of its support, gradually loses its energies, and sinks into a profound repose. What wonder, then, that in the native ignorance of mankind of the true nature of God, the wise should have worshipped the sun as the fittest emblem of God, and the ignorant as God Himself. Such was probably the idolatry of the nations from