rolled the bright luminaries of the firmament-the sun, the moon, and the stars-into their circumambient orbits; confined the rushing waters within their prescribed boundaries; constructed the superb aisles of the pillared forests; painted the flowers and foliage in all their lovely diversities of hue and tint; planted, for natural observatories, the purple masses of mountain and promontory; margined lake and rivulet with emerald mosses and sparkling crystals, and sanded their beds with granulated gold and gleaming gems; or laid out the surface of the land in picturesque undulations of vale and hillock. All this we know not. But, as this article is not designed to treat on true or orthodox pneumatology, we will limit ourselves to a flying tour through the empyrean of heathenism, alighting now and then on some jutting point of truth.

The gods of Greece, as they would not deign to signify their presence to the uninitiated and profane multitude, were believed to choose the oracles as their media of communication with earth-dwellers; although, whether any of the everdreaded evil deities, who infested those classic precincts and atmosphere, also availed themselves of the vehicles provided for the accommodation of the good spirits, the priests seemed to take no pains to ascertain, but, with superb indifference, delivered each oraculum as the genuine revelation of a holy divinity. It would tend little to edification, to attempt here an enumeration of the legion of gods of the semi-civilized heathen, or the uncouth idols of savages, which are all but incorporations of spirits-before which so many hundred millions of our deluded fellow-mortals bow down in blind homage. In spite of all the arguments that boasted rationalism can advance, in refutation of the existence of spiritual beings, skepticism, as regards the belief in them, is the exception, not the rule; the soul instinctively recognizes their secret influences, both good and evil. A clinging faith in the supernatural is an implanted attribute of the mind, whether it be illumined by the light of revelation, or submerged in the darkness of sullied nature. In the two classes of believers, however, the effects resulting from their belief are vastly dissimilar in the one case, it is an overflowing source of peace and pleasure; in the other, of slavish doubt and dismay.

The worship and tributes of pagan devotees to their deities were never the spontaneous offerings of love, but rather bribes, extorted to propitiate merciless tormentors, of

whom they always stood in mortal terror. "The moaning demons who flit along the Stygian morass" received more sincere and earnest worship than did the spirits of love and beauty. The untutored aborigines of Africa and America, in common with the more classical heathens, believe that their dim caverns, their mighty forests, and their fathomless waters, are haunted and peopled by both kind and inimical deities-local spirits-who, having once passed through a human probation, love to revisit and hover around the favorite spots of yore, and, as occasion offers, perform good or bad offices to their successors in the procession of life. The histories of even the purest of the heathen divinities display attributes of such shocking depravity as must necessarily have eradicated the plainest principles of inherent morality. From Monsieur Jupiter, who, ensconced on the summit of Mount Olympus, brandishes his sceptre with imperious air, down through the innumerable hordes of lesser divinities who throng his court, there are but few of the gods and goddesses whose personal characteristics and antecedents are not of a disreputable order; the exceptional cases being the Muses, those eminently strong-minded females, Minerva and Diana, Apollo, and, perchance, a few others.

To those nations who paid divine honors to separate spirits, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls was a fruitful hot-bed of idolatry; for, as it was conjectured that the soul, on its dismissal from its own human body, passed into that of some inferior animal, although it was not known what as they were favored with no revelation on the subject-the objects of worship were, consequently, multiplied to an incredible degree. Nor did that suffice, for, not content with the living animals which they surmised might possibly be the tabernacles of departed souls, they carved their images in wood and stone, and silver and gold, and placed them on high altars as recipients of divine honors. Before these shrines they poured forth their griefs for those recently deceased, who had just commenced the weary process of expiation, and returned thanks for the nearly completed metempsychoses of others just returned to earth as new-born babes.*

• Why the Evil One is generally represented, especially in old nursery pictures, with a cloven foot, horns, and tail, and why, in all our associations of him, he is thus marked, is accounted for by De Foe, who assumes that the idea originated with the Golden Calf, under which form the Hebrews worshipped him, and proceeds thus: "And some think, also, in this shape the Devil most

It was generally believed that angels and demons are immortal and indestructible, excepting a certain class of fallen spirits, called Astral, the offspring of forbidden unions between mortals and immortals, who were supposed to have their dwellings in the four elements, over which they individually preside, and who, being less culpable than others of their aerial brethren, were granted the boon of annihilation, and doomed to perish, with their respective elements, at the end of the world. The cabalistic writers distinguish them as sylphs, who disport in the air; gnomes, who inhabit the earth; salamanders, who revel in fire, and naiads, or undines, who float in the water. These deities probably belong to the same romantic class as the fairies of Ireland and Scotland, and the various mountain, water, and household sprites, that impart such a weird-like air to the popular traditions of Germany and Scandinavia. By their partisans, they are worshipped as lesser divinities, who, although not possessed of divine powers, are, nevertheless, able to bestow good or evil luck upon a household. It is a rather amusing fact, that while Europeans represent evil demons as black, the negroes of Africa suppose them to be white!

The ancient Greeks and Romans had a profound faith in the existence of angels or demons, and cherished a lively sense of their communion with mankind. Plato, in the ensuing terse words, explains their views: "Every demon is a middle being between God and man. All the commerce and intercourse between gods and men is performed by the mediation of demons. Demons are reporters and carriers from men to the gods, and again from the gods to men; of the supplications and prayers of the one, and of the injunctions and rewards of devotion from the other." He furthermore asserts that every person has two demons, or genii, to attend him through life, one of whom is a prompter of good thoughts and actions, the other of evil. Hesiod, also, one of the earliest of the Hellenic authors, and in whose writings is said to appear the first distinct religious recognition of demons, maintains that good angels are frequent visitors to earth on errands of love. Thus he describes their authority and ministrations:

ordinarily appeared to the Egyptians and Arabians, from whom it was derived. Also, in the old writings of the Egyptians, I mean their hieroglyphic writing, before the use of letters was known, we are told this was the mark that he was known by; and the figure of a goat was the hieroglyphic of the Devil."

"Aerial spirits, by great Jove design'd

To be on earth the guardians of mankind;
Invisible to mortal eyes they go,

And mark our actions, good or bad, below;

The immortal spies with watchful care preside,
And thrice ten thousand round their charges glide;
They can reward with glory or with gold,

Such power divine permission bids them hold."

Plutarch asserts that the holy angels are the overseers and auditors of divine worship, of all acts of which they are watchfully observant; and alludes to a very ancient belief in the existence of certain wicked and malignant demons, who, prompted by envy, endeavor to hinder good men in the pursuit of virtue, lest finally they should become partakers of greater happiness than they can hope to enjoy. Speaking of spirits, Apuleius says:

"These the Greeks call by name demons, and being placed as messengers between the inhabitants of earth and those of heaven, they carry, from the one to the other, prayers and bounties, supplications and assistance, being a kind of interpreters and message carriers for both. Through the same demons, as Plato says in his Symposium, all revelations, the various miracles of magicians, and all kinds of presages, are carried on. For especially appointed individuals of this number administer everything according to the province assigned to each; either by framing dreams, or causing ominous fissures in entrails, or governing the flights of some birds, or instructing others in song, or inspiring prophets, or by launching thunders, or causing the lightning to flash in the clouds, or other things to take place by means of which we obtain a knowledge of future events. And we have reason to believe that all these particulars are by the will, the power, and the authority of the celestial gods, but through the obedience, aid, and services of demons; for it was through the employment, the services, and the care of these, that dreams forewarned Hannibal of the loss of one of his eyes; that inspection of the entrails foretold to Flaminius a perilous carnage; and that auguries assured to Attius Navius, the miracle of the whetstone. Nor, indeed, would it be conformable to the majesty of the celestial gods that any of them should either frame a dream for Hannibal, or withdraw the victim from Flaminius, or direct the flight of the bird for Attius Navius, or form in verse the predictions of the Sibyl. It is not becoming that the gods of heaven should condescend to things of this nature. This is the province of the intermediate gods, who dwell in the regions of the air, which are adjacent to the earth, and on the confines of the heavens, just as in each part of the world there are animals peculiarly adapted to it, those which fly, living in the air, and those which walk, on the earth.”

The Emperor Julian, the Apostate, whose head must have been enlightened, though his heart was untouched by the sublime and liberal truths of Christianity, became a zealous slave of paganism, and attempted to revive even its most antiquated orgies and superstitions. In Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church is found a set of in

structions, which, it was supposed, he drew up for the direction of his heathen priests. In them he advocates and defends the use of images in the temples of his deities. He

says:

"Ont of the Supreme Unity emanated first the pure world of intelligence, embracing the gods, who are exalted above all contact with sensible things, and who live only in pure spiritual intuition; the intermediate link between these and the partly spiritual, partly sensual race of mankind, is formed by the eternal living images of those invisible gods in the heavens, viz. the divine souls veiled under the resplendent heavenly orbs, which visibly represent the former, and by which their influence is diffused down to the earth. But since these great heavenly beings are still too far removed from the sensual race of man, and since, moreover, no sensual worship, such as is adapted to man's sensual nature, can be paid to these, images of the gods have been invented on earth, in order that, by paying homage to them through these, we might thereby obtain their favor; just as those, who pay homage to the emperors' images, obtain thereby the favor of the emperors, not because the emperors stand in need of such homage, but because, by showing our willingness in whatever it is possible for us to do, we evince the true piety of our dispositions. * So, whoever loves the gods, looks with pleasure on their images, penetrated with awe towards those invisible beings that look down upon him."

* *

*

Olympiodorus, the Egyptian historian, observes that there is one special demon, who, on the departure of the soul from the body, conducts it into the presence of the judges; another who puts into execution the sentence which by them is pronounced; and a third, to whom is allotted the guardianship of life. This latter he considered to be conscience, which he styles, the Supreme Flower of the Soul. Socrates, the most enlightened and excellent of the heathen philosophers, publicly professed that he was always attended by a demon, or invisible conductor, to whose government he entirely committed himself, and whose warning voice frequently arrested him in the contemplated commission of an injurious. or rash action. This demon, or genius, which he did not designate by any particular name, he declared, had often by its divine voice saved him and others from imminent peril and sin. After the disastrous battle of Delium, it rescued him from certain death or captivity. By the more astute and shrewd of his compeers, this familiar spirit was, however, believed to be nothing more preternatural than an illumined judgment, tempered by long experience and an invincible love of virtue.

It was the opinion of Hesiod that, when good men die, they attain great honor and dignity, and become demons. Plato gravely declares that he himself saw the souls of the