_The Idol of the Sects._--Proceeding forth from them, is that all-pervading essence or influence which is immanent in all things--the light of the sun, moon and stars, the light also of the human understanding, quickening and illumining, in greater or less degree, "every man that cometh into the world." In it we live, move and have our being; for it is the principle of life throughout creation. This is what the poet was describing, when he portrayed Deity as a "Soul" that "warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze," etc. And this is what the Christian sects were worshiping at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Not God, but a spirit sent forth from God; not Divinity, but an emanation from Divinity. In a word, they were practicing idolatry--or something dangerously akin to it. _What Constitutes Idolatry?_--"Idolatry is every worship that stops short of the Supreme." [14] It is "the paying of divine homage to false gods or images; also, adoration of created or imaginary beings or natural objects or forces." [15] This is precisely what the ancient world was doing when the book of Genesis was written. The Canaanites worshiped the sun and moon--Baal and Ashtoreth--ascribing to them the powers of creation. The Egyptians adored the crocodile, the bull, the goat and the beetle (scarabeus). Among the Hindus the seasons were deified--spring, summer, autumn, winter; as were also the passions--love, hate, fear, anger and revenge. All these were revered as deities. Then came Moses, who had seen the living and true God, and had conversed with him face to face, receiving from him the Decalogue or Ten Commandments unto Israel. The first commandment reads: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." _Modern Christendom's Position._--The world in Joseph Smith's day--the Christian world at least--did not worship the heavenly bodies; did not deify beasts and reptiles, did not regard the seasons and passions as divine. Yet it had turned from the true God, ignoring or misinterpreting what Moses and the prophets had written concerning him. According to its dictum, the age of miracles was past; prophets were out of date, and angel messengers obsolete; the heavens were sealed, the canon of scripture was full, and God would never again communicate with mortals. Then came the vision of the Father and the Son--two glorious beings in the form of man--and from the hour that the boy Joseph beheld them, there was at least one person upon this planet who knew what kind of a being God is. It was a virtual reassertion of the first commandment in the Decalogue: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." To worship anything that God has made and given, in lieu of the Maker and Giver, is to worship an idol. They who turn from the Creator to the creature, who forsake God and adore a gift or an emanation from God, are idolaters, almost as much as if they worshiped the sun and moon, or bowed down to goats and crocodiles.