s offering was refused, and ere he dipped his
hands in his brother's blood. In Genesis iv. 26 there is an
implication that man had forsaken the right and holy religion prior to
the days of Seth. There is an opinion that men soon began to worship
the sun, moon, and stars, and that subsequently they paid homage to
objects which contributed to their preservation and to things that
might do them injury. The wandering Jew, Benjamin, one of the greatest
travellers in the East, gives an interesting account of solar worship
in early times. The posterity of Cush, he tells us, were addicted to
the contemplation of the stars, and worshipped the sun as a god. Their
towns were filled with altars dedicated to this orb. At early morn the
people rose, and ran out of the cities to await the rising sun, to
which on every altar there was a consecrated image, not in the
likeness of a man, but after the fashion of the solar orb, formed by
magic art. These artificial orbs, as soon as the sun rose, took fire,
and resounded with a great noise, to the joy of the deluded devotees.

Many Jewish doctors have condescended upon the precise time when man
began to commit idolatry, and they name Enos as the first
star-worshipper. Arabian divines tell a story of Abraham being brought
up in a dark cave, and at his first coming forth he was so much struck
with the appearance of the sun, moon, and stars, that he worshipped
them; and there are people who imagine that in the Book of Job they
discover evidence of the heavenly host being adored in the time of the
old patriarch of Uz.

Some suppose that all the gods of antiquity were Egyptian kings,
others that they were Thessalian princes, others that they were Jewish
patriarchs; while not a few are of opinion that they were kings of the
several countries where they were worshipped. It has been supposed
that Saturn represented Adam; Rhea, Eve; Jupiter, Cain; Prometheus,
Abel; Apollo, Lamech; Mercury, Jabal; Bacchus, Noah; and Phaeton,
Elias. Others imagine that Saturn came in place of Noah; Pluto, of
Sem; Neptune, of Japheth; Bacchus, of Nimrod; and Apollo, of Phut. A
third class of thinkers maintain that all the heathen gods centre in
Moses, and the goddesses in Zipporah his wife, or in Miriam his
sister. A fourth class hold that Saturn was Abraham; Rhea, Sarah;
Ceres, Keturah; Pallas, Hagar; Jupiter, Isaac; Juno, Rebecca; Pluto,
Ishmael; Typhon, Jacob; and Venus, Rachel. Such are examples of
imaginary rese