of
Moloch, in a golden ark, which was carried by the Phenicians with them
to war.[41:1] Like the Fijians of the present day, those people
considered their gods as beings like themselves. They loved and they
hated; they were proud and revengeful; they were, in fact, savages like
themselves.

If the eldest born of the family of Athamas entered the temple of the
Laphystian Jupiter, at Alos, in Achaia, he was sacrificed, crowned with
garlands, like an animal victim.[41:2]

The offering of human sacrifices to the Sun was extensively practiced in
Mexico and Peru, before the establishment of Christianity.[41:3]

FOOTNOTES:

[39:1] See Mueller's Hist. Sanscrit Literature; and Williams' Indian
Wisdom, p. 29.

[39:2] Quoted by Count de Volney; New Researches in Anc't Hist., p. 144.

[39:3] See Inman's Ancient Faiths, vol. ii. p. 104.

[39:4] Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 302.

[40:1] Ibid.

[40:2] See chapter xi.

[41:1] Baring-Gould: Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 368.

[41:2] Kenrick's Egypt, vol. i. p. 448.

[41:3] See Acosta: Hist. Indies, vol. ii.

CHAPTER V.

JACOB'S VISION OF THE LADDER.

In the 28th chapter of Genesis, we are told that Isaac, after blessing
his son Jacob, sent him to Padan-aram, to take a daughter of Laban's
(his mother's brother) to wife. Jacob, obeying his father, "went out
from Beer-sheba (where he dwelt), and went towards Haran. And he lighted
upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was
set. And he took of the stones of the place, and put them for his
pillow, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold,
a _ladder_ set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. _And
he beheld the angels of God ascending and descending on it._ And,
behold, the Lord stood above it, and said: 'I am the Lord God of Abraham
thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, to thee
will I give it, and to thy seed.' . . . And Jacob awoke out of his
sleep, and he said: 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I know it
not.' And he was afraid, and said: 'How _dreadful_ is this place, _this
is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven_.'
And Jacob rose up early in the morning, _and took the stone that he had
put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the
top of it_. And he called the name of that place _Beth-el_."

The doctrine of Metempsychosis has evidently something to do with