The Babylonians were much addicted to auguries: and they believed them to be unerring oracles, and able to direct them in doubtful and arduous things, _Ezek._ xxi. 21. Those auguries always directed their conduct, in every material thing they undertook; such as the beginning and carrying on war, going a journey, marriage, and the like. But, as we shall soon see, the Americans, when they go to war, prepare and sanctify themselves, only by fasting and ablutions, that they may not defile their supposed holy ark, and thereby incur the resentment of the Deity. And many of them firmly believe, that marriages are made above. If the Indian Americans were descended from any of the states or people above mentioned, they could not well have forgotten, much less could they have so essentially departed from their idolatrous worship. It is hence probable, they came here, {26} soon after the captivity, when the religion of the Hebrew nation, respecting the worship of Deity, was in its purity. And if any of the ancient heathens came with them, they became proselytes of habitation, or justice—hereby, their heathenish rites and ceremonies were, in process of time, intirely absorbed in the religious ceremonies of the Jews. Had the nine tribes and half of Israel which were carried off by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, and settled in Media, continued there long, it is very probable, that by intermarrying with the natives, and from their natural fickleness and proneness to idolatry, and the force of example, they would have adopted, and bowed before the gods of the Medes and the Assyrians, and carried them along with them. But there is not a trace of this idolatry among the Indians. The severe afflictions they underwent in captivity, doubtless humbled their hearts, and reclaimed them from the service of the calves, and of Baalam, to the true divine worship—a glimpse of which they still retain. And that the first settlers came to America before the destruction of the first temple, may be inferred, as it is certain both from Philo and Josephus, that the second temple had no cherubim. To reflect yet greater light on the subject, I shall here add a few observations on the Indians supposed religious cherubic emblems, the cherubimical names of their tribes, and from whence they, and the early heathens, may be supposed to have derived them.