Evidently the first colonizers of Greece brought with them much of the simple faith and worship recorded in the Hebrew writings. A stone, or the trunk of a tree, was set up for a memorial, and, according to the alarm that had been felt, or the deliverance experienced, on some spot thereby sanctified, worship was offered to that great Being whose rule all acknowledged, but whose name none ventured to pronounce. Doubtless the excess of awe, if no more mundane influence, generated superstition; as the vow of Jephtha had its parallel in the almost cotemporaneous sacrifice of Iphigenia, and of Polyxena. It was this barbarous race that the polished and erudite traveler, Orpheus, endeavored to civilize. Perhaps, as in later times, he imagined that hidden doctrines would best improve the higher classes; while the minds of the vulgar would be easier won by fables, and weaned from gloomy superstitions by the worship of divine benevolence, manifested in the varied products and powers of nature. The attempt, however, failed, and the grossness of depraved perceptions converted those different manifestations into separate deities, so that different localities and cities came to have their tutelary stone, or wooden idol, or marble statue. The temple was built on the spot hallowed by devotion, as at Bethel; but in a subsequent age the impulse of the original consecration was no longer felt, and its intent was forgotten. The gorgeous fane, and the fascinating image therein, became objects of degenerate worship; the source of profit to a mercenary priesthood, and of deterioration to the most intellectual and moral of mankind.