Miss Ormesden. Repeat the first of the ten laws, Mary. Mary. 'I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none other gods but Me.'

Miss O. Now can you tell me the distinction between this and the next Commandment?

Mary. The first is against false religions, or no religion; the second against wrong ways of worshipping the true God.

Helena. It is the Lord JEHOVAH proclaiming that Te is God, the only God, and has a right to our whole orship.

Audrey. When He once was known, as He was by adition long before the Commandments, it seems strange w false religions could arise.

Miss O. They are of several different classes, or rather, rose from different errors. One was the idea, that the Evil power was equal in might to the Author of good, and that his malignity might be averted by offerings and prayers.

Audrey. Like that nation of devil-worshippers in the

east.

Helena. Then the fire-worshippers had their Ahriman.

Audrey. Besides the old Egyptian Typhon.
Helena. And the Hindoo destroyer, Sceva.

Miss O. I believe the Hindoo mythology is very closely related to the Egyptian; there is the same personification of nature, and adoration of the symbols of qualities or ideas, and of the astronomical system.

Audrey. Oh! I read the other day, that when the East Indian army was marched into Egypt in Buonaparte's time, the Sepoys adored the old Egyptian idols and figures, recognizing them as their own deities.

Miss O. In both cases, the transition into gross idolatry among the common people was the easier, because the caste of priests kept the hidden meaning of these signs to themselves as a mystery.

Audrey. So that the ox, and dog, and Egyptian beetle, and the Indian ape, and the lotus, in both countries are absolutely worshipped by the people.

Miss O. And it seems as if the Israelites in their 400 years in Egypt had, with the Egyptians, gradually glided into this idolatry; the full and horrible development is seen in the Hindoo worship of Juggernaut-another name for Vishnu.

Helena. The car of Juggernaut I suppose nothing was ever more frightful! And he not the worst of the three gods. Vishnu, the preserver!

Miss O. The foul horror of idolatry indeed, showing what that revelation on Mount Sinai did for the house of Israel first, and afterwards for the world. The truth had been sufficiently lost in Egypt for a new proclamation of the Name of God to be needed.

Audrey. With all those proofs of His power in Egypt and in the wilderness.

Helena. And yet they would not lay aside their leaning to Egyptian superstition, and took up a great deal of what they found in Canaan !

Audrey. In spite of those denunciations that come over

and over again in Deuteronomy against mixing with the other nations, and inquiring how they served their gods. Helena. Almost their whole history is idolatry, and its punishment. I suppose not much is known about the gods whose worship led them aside-Baalim, as the book of Judges says.

Miss O. That is, I believe, the plural of Baal, a word meaning God.

Helena. That must be the reason we so often find it joined with some other word.

Mary. Baal-peor, the god of Moab.

Miss O. His feasts seem to have been scenes of peculiar wickedness, and enticing Israel to them was Balaam's device, for the ruin which direct attacks could not produce while their heart was whole with their Lord. it is thought, may be another name for him.

Mary. Baal-berith.

Chemosh,

Miss O. That name means the god of covenants, and if you remember, his altar was set up when the treaty was made with the Midianites. Perhaps this was not so much the breach of this Commandment, as of the second, an irregular worship.

Mary. Dagon, who fell down before the ark..

Miss O. The Philistines came originally from Egypt, and Dagon, or Derketo, was thence derived. She was a goddess shaped like a fish or a mermaid, and is mentioned in much later times as having temples at Ashkelon and Gaza.

Audrey. Baal-zebub, god of Ekron, must have been another Philistine god. I once read that his name meant the god of flies, and that he was entreated to keep away venomous insects.

Helena. Is that the meaning of Beelzebub ?

Miss O. That name should, it is said, be called Beelzebul, which means lord of the firmament, prince of the power of the air. The later Jews, and after them the

refusing to worship the golden image, but for not choosing to flatter Darius by abstaining from prayer.

Helena. Ah! and in 'Bel and the Dragon' Darius does not seem like a real worshipper of idols, but only puzzled by the delusions of the Chaldean priests, and consulting Daniel about them.

Audrey. But the Persians really did worship the sun, light, and fire, did they not?

Miss O. I believe it was rather idolatrous homage, as of visible emblems. The sun as the eye of Ormuzd, not as an independent god.

Helena. Such homage as Job speaks of, when he says, 'If I beheld the sun when it shineth, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand.'

Miss O. Yes, there had always been a tendency to such observance in the east, and perhaps the two miracles worked upon the sun served to counteract it.

Helena. But even in the Temple, the five-and-twenty men were bowing to the rising sun.

Miss O. It must have been an offset of the Persian heathenism, I suppose, that led them into that profanation. Mary. They had given horses to the sun, which Josiah took away.

Helena. Yes, the sun's progress made people fancy he had a chariot, and so they kept horses in his honour.

Audrey. White horses harnessed to a chariot with a golden hook to the pole.

Helena. It was because of that notion that Darius Hystaspes was chosen king by his horse at sunrise.

Audrey. And you know Darius Codomanus took all his horses of the sun, and 360 youths, to represent the days of the year, when he fought with Alexander.

Helena. And how curious to find the sun worship on the other side of the world in Peru.

Miss O. I suppose the Magian worship bore its best