[23] That the Druids worshipped rocks, stones, and fountains, and imagined them inhabited, and actuated by _divine intelligences of a lower rank_, may plainly be inferred from their stone monuments. These inferior deities the Cornish call _spriggian, or spirits_, which answer to genii or fairies; and the vulgar in Cornwall still discourse of them, as of real beings. [24] See Macpherson's Introduction to the history of great Britain and Ireland. [25] This idol, which is called by the Septuagint, Baal, is mentioned in other parts of scripture by other names. To understand what this god was, we may observe, that the deities of the Greeks and Romans come from the East; and it is a tradition among the ancient and modern heathens that this idol was an obscure deity, which may plead excuse for not translating some passages concerning it; and this is agreeable to Hosea (ix. 10). They _went out_ into _Baal Pheor_, and _separated themselves to their shame_. And it is the opinion of Jerome, who quotes it from an ancient tradition of the Jews, that _Baal Pheor_ is the _Priapus_ of the Greeks and Romans; and if you look into the vulgar latin (1 Kings xv. 13.) we shall find it thus rendered, _and Asa, the King removed_ Maacha, _his mother from being queen, that she might no longer be high Priestess in the sacrifices of Priapus_. And he destroyed the grove she had consecrated, and broke the most filthy idol, and burnt it at the brook _Kedron_. Dr. Cumberland inserts, that the import of the word _Peor_, or _Baal Pheor_, is he that shews boastingly or publicly, his nakedness. Women to avoid barrenness, were to sit on this filthy image, as the source of fruitfulness; for which Lactantius and Augustine justly deride the heathens. [26] There was an awful mysteriousness in the original Druid sacrifice. Descanting upon the human sacrifices of various countries, Mr. Bryant informs us, that among the nations of Canaan, _the_ victims _were chosen in a peculiar manner_; their own children, and whatsoever was nearest and dearest to them, were thought the most worthy offerings to their gods! The Carthagenians, who were a colony from Tyre, carried with them the religion of their mother country and instituted the same worship in the parts where they were seated. Parents offered up their own children as dearest to themselves, and therefore the more acceptable to the deity: they sacrificed "the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul," The Druids, no doubt, were actuated with the same views.