‘The same El was worshipped at Byblus, by the Phœnicians, and he was called there the Son of Heaven and Earth. His father was the son of Eliun, the most high god, who had been killed by wild animals. The son of Eliun who succeeded him was dethroned, and at last slain by his own son _El_, whom Philo identifies with the Greek Kronos, and represents as the presiding deity of the planet Saturn. In the Himyaritic inscriptions too the name of El has been discovered. ‘With the name of El, Philo connected the name of Elohim, the plural of Eloah. In the battle between _El_ and his father, the allies of El, he says, were called Eloeim, as those who were with Kronos were called Kronioi. This is no doubt a very tempting etymology of _Eloah_; but as the best Semitic scholars, and particularly Professor Fleischer, have declared against it, we shall have, however reluctantly, to surrender it. ‘Eloah is the same word as the Arabic Ilâh, God. In the singular, _Eloah_ is used synonymously with El; in the plural, it may mean gods in general, or false gods: but it becomes in the Old Testament the recognized name for the true God, plural in form but singular in meaning. In Arabic Ilâh without the article means a god in general; with the article Al-Ilâh, or Allâh, becomes the name of the God of Abraham and Moses.’ P. 197. _Nature-Worship._--The part which the phenomena of nature play in training the thoughts of uncultivated men toward religion, and poetry, and hero-worship, and legendary lore, has been made the subject of warm controversy. And it may not be altogether amiss if we bestow a little thought upon the question, and upon the character of evidence by which this nature-worship is thought to be established. That it is in no sense a degradation of our estimate of man to suppose that his thoughts were led upward from the contemplation of the objects of sense which lay around to the contemplation of a Higher Being beyond the region of sensible things, will become, it is to be hoped, clear upon a little reflection, and upon a candid examination of what has been said in pp. 173-176. But still it may fairly be asked, Did this process of deifying the powers of nature take place? Why should not the human mind have come independently by the direct revelation of God’s voice speaking in the hearts of men to a notion of a God ruler of the world, and then, by a natural process of decay, proceed thence to a polytheism, a pantheon of beings who were supposed to rule over the different phenomena of nature, just as the different members of a cabinet hold sway over the various branches of national government?