What were the gradual steps before the Deluge, in the divergence of man's worship of God, is not difficult to imagine if we look at the history of the Chaldees, of the Hittites, and of the Jews themselves. Subsequent to the Deluge, from the grateful sacrifice of the seventh animal by Noah, to Abraham's typical offering of Isaac, it is not a very far cry to the butchery of Jephthah's daughter or the immolations to Moloch. A well-intended Ed[16] may readily become a schismatic Mecca. An altar of Dan is soon furnished with its golden calf. With this as a starting-point, _viz._, that the knowledge of himself was directly imparted to man by Jehovah, and that certain forms of worship were originally directed and sanctioned by Him, I wish in subsequent pages to follow that line of light through the labyrinths of man's wandering from monotheism into polytheism, idolatry, and even into crass fetichism. Abstract faith is difficult. It is so much easier to believe what we see, to have faith assisted by sight. Even such faith is not without its blessing, but "blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."[17] Memory is assisted by visible signs; whence the art of writing,--in its usefulness so far beyond the Indian's wampum belts. Merely oral law is apt to be forgotten, or its requisitions and prohibitions become hazy. As the years passed by, and nations, after the dispersion from the tower on the plain of Shinar, diverged more and more, not only in speech and writing but also in customs, their religious thought began to vary from the simple standard of Adam and Noah. Between those small beginnings of variation and the gulf-like depth of the fetich, there are three successive steps.