Among all but the Israelites, the progress of the tangible was much more rapid: idolatry, with all its gross rites, had established itself among _the people_, at any rate, in Egypt, at a very early period; and spread from that old and luxurious empire, through the more simple states which sprang up around and from it. The Exodus was a warning from on high, that there was a Being, unseen and intangible, whose fiat governed all things: and this lesson was not wholly without fruit: yet still the human race reverted to the objects of the senses, till, in God’s good time, he sent his Son: presented a tangible form on which the mind could dwell—then removed it from the earth, and said, “You may now think on this, and give your imagination a resting place: this form you shall see again; but in mean time you must purify your hearts from earthly desires: that form will only greet your eyes when you have cast off the burthen of the flesh, and have entered upon a spiritual existence.” The first Christians remembered and loved the man; his precepts, his example, his smallest words or actions were recurred to with the fondness of personal friendship; and this carried Christianity through the first two centuries; but then this remembrance began to have a character of abstraction, and again the human heart called for tangibility. Then came, step by step, gorgeous ceremonies, pictures, representations of the personal presence and sufferings of the Saviour. The very requirements of those who quitted the splendid and sensual rites of heathenism for the faith of Christ, led the Christian doctors to endeavour to replace the festival of the idol by something analogous in the Christian church: and thus without well knowing what they were tending to, the heads of the church yielded one point of spiritualism after another; sought to captivate and awe the people by impressive ceremonies; and finished by the sin of Aaron: they set up the image and said, “These be thy Gods, O Israel! that brought thee out of the land of Egypt.” {131a} For be it observed here, that Aaron set up this image merely as a tangible representation of the true Deity; _a help to the devotion of the people_, who could not worship without seeing something.