Hence it is evident they had a perception of their true character. And the missionary, Rev. D. O. Allen, tells us that even those who have been represented as worshiping the sun, moon, and stars, only contemplate these planets as symbols of the Deity, and that "their worship is really aimed to the invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent God." It appears, then, that whatever external objects the most ignorant and savage tribes have addressed, or have been supposed to worship, have been used merely as types and symbols to enhance their devotion in the worship of the true God. Though, as Cicero remarks (in his philosophical works), "A few may have been so feeble in their perceptions as to confound and identify the statues and Gods together." But another writer avers, "There is not in all antiquity the least trace of a prayer addressed to a statue." He also says, "All paganism does not offer a single fact which can lead to the conclusion that they ever adored idols; nor was there ever a law compelling them to do so." When Paul declared to the Athenians, "Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you," he confessed most explicitly that they worshiped the true God through their idols. Where, then, is the sin of idolatry? In one of the Hindoo Bibles (the Baghavat Gita) God is made to say, "They who serve other Gods with a firm belief of being right do really involuntarily serve me, and shall be rewarded." How admirable, how noble, how magnanimous and merciful is this sentiment compared with the damning, death-dealing denunciations against idolatry by the Jewish Jehovah! And the Mahomedan Bible (the Koran) contains a similar sentiment to the above. Thus, we observe, both the Hindoo and Mahomedan Bibles evince in this respect a higher degree of moral sense than that of the Christian Bible, whose violent interdictions against idolatry have caused many nations to be butchered, and their lands deluged with blood. "There is nothing in the Christian Bible," says Mr. Higgins, "of one-twentieth part of the value of this text of the Hindoo Bible in the way of preventing a foolish persecution and bloodied." It may be remembered here that Christians inherited their extreme hatred of idolatry from the Jews, which is fostered by the Jewish Bible, and that the Jews derived their feelings of opposition to it from the two nations under which they were long enslaved,--the Persians and Egyptians,--both of which, according to Herodotus, forbid the making of idols, the former interdicting it by law; as did also the Roman emperor, Numa Pompilius, 600 B.C. The Parsees of India to this day oppose idolatry; and the learned among the Chinese have always discountenanced it. Strabo and other Grecian philosophers wrote against it. "And many sects arose among the ancient heathen," says the "Hierophant," "who rejected all external symbols of the Deity." On the other hand, neither Jews nor Christians have been entirely free from this "sin" so called. As for "the Lord's