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spices, had not been sufficiently successful to furnish them with a meal. Trav. Anach. iii. 68.

The festivals in honor of Bacchus, called Dionysia, were celebrated over all Greece, especially at Athens. This festival, it appears, was considered, as peculiarly respectable and sacred. By the return of it were the years numbered. The chief archon had a part in the management of it; and the priests, who officiated on this occasion, were honored with the first seats at the public shows. Whatever these festivals were, therefore, they are not to be considered, as exhibiting the character of a few extravagant profligates, but that of every nation or community, into which they were received.

These Bacchanalia, or Dionysia, were, it seems, of different kinds, such as the greater, the less, &c. In some of them, it was usual for the worshippers, in their garments and actions, to imitate the poetical fictions concerning Bacchus ; they put on fawn skins, fine linen, and mitres; carried thyrsi, drums, pipes, and flutes; and crowned themselves with garlands of trees, sacred to the god. Some exposed themselves by uncouth dresses, and antic motions. In this manner, persons of both sexes ran about the hills, deserts and other places, wagging their heads, dancing in ridiculous postures, filling the air with hideous noises, and personating men distracted. Nothing could exceed the sensuality, which was allowed on this occasion; revelling and drunkenness were part of the worship, to which they were obliged, in honor of the god.

These impure and infamous celebrations were introduced from Greece into Tuscany, and thence to Rome. At this latter place, the impure actions and indulgences, which accompanied them, became so intolerable, as to call for the interference of the Senate.* The festival was, for a while, suppressed, but was afterwards re-established.

The Floralia, or games in honor of Flora, are metioned *Livy xxxix. 13 &c.

by Paterculus, and described by Lactantius.* The goddess, in whose honor these games were instituted, according to the last mentioned writer, amassed, while a mortal, a large estate, by a life of abandoned profligacy. This estate she bequeathed, at death, to the Roman people. They, in their turn, instituted an annual festival to her honor. What kind of rites would be practised at the annual celebration of such a character, may be sufficiently known, without reading the accounts, transmitted to us from this eloquent father.

Nocturnal festivals in honor of Kotytis, the goddess of lewdness, mentioned by Juvenal, were observed, says Apb. Potter, by the Athenians, Corinthians, Chians, Thracians, and others. Sat. ii. 91. line. Potter. i. 440.

The impurities, practised at the Lupercalia, in the worship of Cybele, and in the temples of Venus, at Crete, Corinth, and Babylon, need not, and ought not to be mentioned.

But we are not to suppose, that the ancient heathen worship tended to corrupt, in one particular only, those, who engaged in it. Impurity was not the only crime, of which their gods had been guilty; and of course, not the only vice, which their votaries would learn from them.

The dishonesty of Mercury has been mentioned in this lecture. The annual festival of this deity was celebrated at Rome on the fifteenth of May. On which occasion, the merchants, traders, &c. after performing certain ceremonies, prayed, that the god would both blot out all the frauds and perjuries, which they had committed already, and enable them again to practise like impositions. Pantheon, Bell.

Casting but a slight glance on the pagan religion, we are likely to consider it, as exclusively gay, and festive. Increased attention will lead to a different conclusion. It was, in many parts, gay and grossly licentious; but in other parts, it was cruel, ferocious, and unrelenting.

A solemnity, called Diamastigosis, was observed at Sparta, in honor of Diana. The name is derived from the scour

* Pater. LI. c. xiv. 8. Lac. p. 74.

gings, which boys received on the altar of the goddess. The lashes were continued, till the blood gushed out. They sometimes ended the life of the wretched sufferer. Diana's priestess was nigh at hand, urging increased severity. Parents were present to exhort their sons to endure the lash with patience and constancy. Those, who died by these means, were buried with garlands on their heads, in token of joy and victory, and had the honor of a public funeral. Potter 1. 408. Anach. 11. 271. 320.

There is no part of pagan worship, which strikes us with greater horror, than the well known fact of their offering human sacrifices.

This kind of worship appears to have prevailed to very great extent. It was practised by the ancient Persians. During a tempest, as Herodotus informs us, (Note, vol. 3. p. 296.) the Magi offered human victims. We are informed, that Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, buried twelve persons alive, as an offering to Pluto, on her own account, that is, as a sacrifice, by which it was designed to procure the favor of the gods for herself. The same Amestris is said to have caused fourteen children of the best families in Persia to be interred alive, as a gratification to the god beneath the earth. When the enemy of Xerxes came to a place, called the Nine Ways, the Magi took nine of the sons and daughters of the inhabitants, saith the same historian, and buried them alive, as the manner of the Persians is.

It was the custom of the ancient Scythians to sacrifice every hundreth captive. Having poured libations on their heads, they cut their throats into a vessel, for that purpose. From these human victims, they cut off the right arms, close to the shoulder, and threw them up into the air. This ceremony being performed on each victim severally, they depart. The arms remain where they happen to fall; the bodies elsewhere.

Among the Thracians, a human sacrifice was offered every fifth year, to the god Zamolxis.

Our account of this sanguinary worship might be much enlarged, on the authority of Herodotus.*

Human sacrifices, says the Abbe Barthelemi, were not unfrequent among the Greeks. They were common in almost every nation. Twelve Trojan youth were sacrificed by Achilles, at the funeral of Patroclus.

Leland, quoting from Porphyry, enumerates, among those, who sometimes offered human sacrifices, the Lacedæmonians and Athenians.

This mode of worship was early received, and long retained by the Romans. Lactantius mentions the sacrificing of human victims to Saturn, as an ancient rite; informing us, that the sacrifice was not made by immolation at an altar, but by plunging the devoted person from the Milvian bridge into the Tyber. Infants were sacrificed to the same god. Virgil represents Æneas, as sacrificing eight young men to the infernal gods. Livy, in the twenty second book of his history, tells us of four persons, who were buried alive, by way of sacrifice.

Nor does it appear that this practice was abandoned, among the Romans, until the beginning of the second century of the christian era. Though condemned by the best among the philosophers, it had not been extirpated. Even at a later period, than the second century, all remains of it were not destroyed. Lactantius asserts, that even in his time, i. e. in the fourth century, offerings of this kind were not wholly abolished. "Latialis, Jupiter etiam nunc sanguine colitur humano."

Among the the Carthagenians, these sacrifices were not uncommon. When they were conquered by Agathocles, King of Sicily, thinking, that the god was angry with them they sacrificed to him two hundred sons of the nobility.

Cæsar gives us the following information, concerning the worship of the Gauls. When they are afflicted with any dangerous disease,-when they are engaged in war, or ex

*Beloe's Herod. II. 275. 376. IV. 100.

posed to hazard, they either immolate human victims, or make vows to do it; and in these sacrifices they make use of the ministry of the Druids. Others, it appears, formed images of immense magnitude, whose limbs were made hollow by a texture of osiers, into which were thrown living men to be consumed by the fire. Human sacrifices, as we learn from Tacitus, were offered by the ancient Germans.

To these testimonies, we shall add a small number from the sacred scriptures. Speaking of the ancient inhabitants of Canaan, the Psalmist asserts, that they sacrificed their sons and daughters to dæmons, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. To the same purpose speaks the prophet Jeremiah. They built the high places of Tophet, which is the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire. They built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire, for burnt offerings unto Baal.

The account here given, of the cruelty and licentiousness, which accompanied the pagan worship, is brief, and might easily be enlarged. The reason why more facts have not been exhibited, and why their sacred rites have not been made to appear more infamous and detestable, is, that any description of them would be indecent, whatever circumlocutions were resorted to, or how great soever might be our caution in the selection of words.

I would now request your attention to those reflections. which naturally result from the facts stated. And,

I. Agreeably to what was observed in the last lecture, we perceive, that no objection can be made to the testimony of the poets, in regard to the history and character of the gods. To persons, imbued with those truths, which are derived from the fountain of sacred scripture, it cannot, at first, seem credible, that the human understanding should ever be so deeply degraded, as to receive for religious doctrines, the absurdities of poetic mythology. But the fact is, that the legislators, who organized the system of pagan

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