spread through all the world_ to serve images, with services different one from another, and to sacrifice unto and worship them. So, in process of time, the glorious and fearful Name was forgotten out of the mouth of all living, and out of their knowledge, and they acknowledged Him not. And there was found on earth no people that knew aught, save images of wood and stone, and temples of stone which they had been trained up from their childhood to worship and serve, and to swear by their names; and the wise men that were among them, the priests and such like, thought that there was no God save the stars and spheres, for whose sake, and _in whose likeness_, they had made these images; but as for the Rock Everlasting, there was no man that did acknowledge Him or know Him save a few persons in the world, as Enoch, Methusaleh, Noah, Shem, and Heber. And in this way did the world work and converse, till that pillar of the world, Abram our father, was born." Speculations of the Chaldeans To arrive at a proper comprehension of Babylonian religious doctrines it is necessary to understand the nature of the astrological speculations of the ancient Chaldeans. They recognized at an early period that eternal and unchangeable laws underlay planetary motion, and seem to have been able to forecast eclipses. Soon also did they begin to identify the several heavenly bodies with the gods. Thus the path of the sun was known as the 'way of Anu,' and the course of the moon and planets they determined with reference to the sun's ecliptic or pathway. It is strange, too, that they should have employed the same ideograph for the word 'star' and the word 'god,' the only difference being that in the case of a god they repeated the sign three times. If the sun and moon under animistic law are regarded as gods, it stands to reason that the stars and planets must also be looked upon as lesser deities. Indeed, poets still use such an expression regarding them as 'the host of heaven,' and we frequently encounter in classical authors the statement that the stars in their courses fought for such and such a person. This is tantamount to saying that the stars possess volition, and even although omens were looked for out of their movements, it may have been believed that these were the outcome of volition on the part of the stars themselves as deities or deific individuals. Again we can see how the idea that the gods reside in 'heaven'--that is, the sky--arose from early astrological conceptions. The gods were identified in many cases with the stars, therefore it is only natural to suppose that they resided in the sky-region. It is, indeed, one of the most difficult matters for even an intelligent and enlightened man in our enlightened age to dissociate the idea of God from a residence in the sky or 'somewhere up there.'