Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/33

 notions of a Deity dtjfimilar to the heathens. 21

liberty, or on any other accidental account, that vicious precedent was fo well calculated for America, where every place was a thick arbour, it is very improbable they mould have difcontinued it : But they are the very reverfe. To commit fuch acts of pollution, while they are performing any of their reli gious ceremonies, is deemed fo provoking an impiety, as to occafion even the fuppofed fmner to be excluded from all religious communion with the reft of the people. Or even was a man known to have gone in to his own. wife, during the time of their faftings, purifications, &c. he would alfo be feparated from them. There is this wide difference between the impure and obfcene religious ceremonies of the ancient heathens, and the yet penal, and drift purity of the natives of America.

The heathens chofe fuch gods, as were moft fuitable to their inclinations,- and the fituation of their country. The warlike Greeks and Romans wor- fhipped Mars the god of war ; and the favage and more bloody Scythians, deified the Sword. The neighbouring heathens round Judsea, each built a temple to the fuppofed god that prefided over their land. Rimmon, was the Syrian god of pomegranates : and the Philiftines, 'likewife, erected a. temple to T)agon, who had firft taught them the ufe of wheat ;. which the Greeks and Romans changed into Ceres, the goddefs of corn, from the Hebrew, Geres, which fignifies grain. But the red Americans firmly be lieve, that their war-captains, and their reputed prophets, gain fuccefs over their enemies, and bring on feafonab-le rains, by the immediate reflection of the divine fire, co-operating with them.

We are informed by Cicero, that the maritime Sidonians adored fijhes : and by the fragment of Sanchoniathon, that the Tynans wormipped the element of fire, and the <erial wind, as gods : probably having forgotten that the firft and laft names of the three celeftial cherubic emblems, only typified, the deity. Ancient hiftory irtforms us, that Zoroafter, who lived An. M. 3480, made light the emblem of good, and darknefs the fymbol of evil he taught an abhorrence of images, and inftructed his pupils to worfhip God, under the figurative likenels off re: but he afferted two con trary original principles ; the one of good, and the other of evil. He allowed no temples, but enjoined facrificing in the open air, and on the top of an hill. The ancient Perfians kept up their reputed holy fire, without fuffering it to be extinguifhed ; which their pretended fuccefibrs obferve with the-

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