* In the highest apartment of the Temple of Belas, in Babylon, a woman was kept for the _private devotion_ of the priest whose turn it was to make astronomical observations. This was done under the pretence that the lady was visited once a year by the god Bel. History dees not inform us in regard to Bel's progeny, by these housekeepers. By such artful intrigues, the Hindu virgin, Rohini, conceived and brought forth a "son of God," one of the Brahmin trinity. A Chinese _virgin_, impregnated by a ray of the _Sun_, became the mother of the god Foê, who always acted as the _mediator_ between his followers and another god of still greater power. Mademoiselle Creusa, in all her virgin purity, was safely delivered of another "_son of God_" as was also the virgin mother of Somonocodom, who, according to the scriptures of the Talapoins of Siam, was the god expected to _save_ the universe. Jupiter himself was fabled to have given birth to children from all parts of his body, from forehead to leg: thus Minerva sprang from his head.* The followers of Plato, two hundred and fifty years after his death, and one hundred before the Christian era, raised the story that he was born of a virgin:--Aristo, his father, was on his marriage, warned in a _dream_ by Apollo, not to have any commerce with his wife, because she was with child by him (Apollo); Aristo obeyed; and Plato was born as another "_son of God_" It was no doubt owing to the holy paternity of some priest, that Sylva Rhea, under cover of a love affair with the god Mars, had the honor to lay the foundation of the Roman religion, by producing another "_son of God_." * The severe study, or brain-labor necessary in acquiring sound knowledge, is here prettily allegorized in the birth, of Minerva, who was the personification of wisdom. The writers of the most ancient chronicles of Alexandria, after attesting the universal prevalence of our _gospel religion_ in Egypt for ages before the date of its alleged origin, in the reign of Tiberius, testify as follows:-- "To this day, Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin, and the nativity of her son, whom they annually present in a cradle, to the adoration of the people; and when king Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty years before our Christian era, demanded of the priests the significancy of this religions ceremony, they told him it was a mystery."*