uty to worship him to his
taste. The Phoenicians, the Druids and the Mexicans have
immolated hundreds at the shrines of their divinity, and the
high and holy name of God has been in all ages the watchword
of the most unsparing massacres, the sanction of the most
atrocious perfidies."

Of the treatment Judaism, the foster mother of Christianity, received
at the poet's hands, I will now recite two examples. To Moses, the
Jehovah of the Hebrews is thus made to speak:

"From an eternity of idleness
I, God, awoke; in seven days' toil made earth
From nothing; rested, and created man;
I placed him in a paradise, and there
Planted the tree of evil, so that he
Might eat and perish, and my soul procure
Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn
Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth,
All misery to my fame. The race of men
Chosen to my honor, with impunity
May sate the lusts _I_ planted in their hearts.
Here I command thee hence to lead them on,
Until, with harden'd feet, their conquering troops
Wade on the promised soil through woman's blood.
And make my name be dreaded through the land,
Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe
Shall be the doom of their eternal souls,
With every soul on this ungrateful earth,
Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong--even all
Shall perish to fulfill the blind revenge
(Which you to men call justice) of their God."

In another place Shelley is equally descriptive of the early stages of
Jewish history, and makes the following observations on the building
of the Temple of Jerusalem, which rearing high its thousand golden
domes to heaven, exposed its glory to the face of day:

"Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed
The building of that fane; and many a father,
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored
The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth,
And spare his children the detested task
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning
The choicest days of life,
To soothe a dotard's vanity.
There an inhuman and uncultured race
Howl'd hideous praises to their demon--God;
They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb
The unborn child--old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends,
And what was he who taught them that the God
Of nature and benevolenc