to mention the practice; when Virgil conducts his hero over the sacred rivers, into the Hades of the heathen, which has been shewn to have been composed of paradisaical memorials: Continuo auditæ voces, vagitus et ingens The rite seems to have arisen from an idea the ancients had of the superior purity of an infant, which rendered it in their eyes a fitter subject than any other to be offered up by way of atonement. The origin of this idea must have been in the diabolical corruption of those traditions which pointed to the one great victim, who, in the fulness of time, would offer up himself as a propitiation for sin, being indeed the “Child born, and the Son given," who should avert the righteous anger of an offended God. It is scarce credible, however, how common the custom was; and it wonderfully evinces the general view entertained of the necessity of some sacrifice, which should take away sin. Silius Italicus, speaking of the Carthaginians, * Eneid vi. 426: mentions it as existing amongst them, from the earliest antiquity : Mos erat in populis quos condidit advena Dido The reason assigned, is strikingly expressed. It was to "seek for pardon from the gods by "the shedding of blood;" and they unhappily conceived that the purest and most acceptable they could offer, was that of the objects nearest and dearest to them. The Carthaginians were a colony from Tyre, and probably from thence it was that they brought so barbarous a custom. The nations of Canaan were guilty of it in a peculiar degree, and seem, from the sacred writings, to have enticed the people of God into an imitation of the bloody rite. "They "did not destroy the nations concerning whom "the Lord commanded them; but were min 66 gled among the heathen, and learned their "works; yea, they sacrificed their sons and "their daughters unto devils, and shed inno"cent blood, even the blood of their sons and "their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto "the idols of Canaan; and the land was *Sil. Ital. iv. 766. polluted with blood."* The most terrible instance recorded of this custom among the Carthaginians, was when their army had been defeated by Agathocles, and they immediately supposed that the calamity had befallen them through the anger of Cronus, to appease whose wrath, no less than two hundred children of the prime nobility were sacrificed in public as an atonement for the people. The Phoenicians, also, besides their more ordinary and common immolations to Moloch, who was the same as Saturn or Cronus, had certain seasons in every year, when children were chosen out of the most noble and reputable families, for the tremendous purpose above described.‡ Justin the historian describes this unnatural custom in a manner truly touching; and so many authors, both ancient and modern, have mentioned it, as well as human sacrifices in general, that it appears hardly necessary to bring forward more instances here than those which have been so often adduced.§ Two, however, * Psalm cvi. 34. + Diodor. Sic. xx. 756. Philo. apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. iv. 16. § Justin. lib. xviii, 6-226. The reader will find, if he is desirous of pursuing the subject further, an immense mass of valuable matter collected by Bryant, vol. vi. pp. 295-321. it will not be right to omit. The first is that fearful one mentioned in scripture, when the king of Moab, to avert a calamity, "took his "eldest son that should have reigned in his "stead, and offered him for a burnt offering "upon the wall." The other shall be that of the great "mystical offering," as it was called, which we are told existed as a religious rite of the greatest importance and solemnity among the Phoenicians: and this cannot be laid before the reader, in a more interesting form, than that which the late analyst of ancient mythology has given it. After having shewn that the most approved sacrifices among the Phoenicians were those of men, yet that even among these they made a difference, and some were in greater repute than others, he proceeds to tell us, that the greatest refinement in these cruel rites was, when the prince of the country, or a chief person in any city, brought an only son to the altar, and there slaughtered him by way of atonement, to avert any evil from the nation at large. Abp. Magee has also increased the number of authorities on these painfully interesting subjects in his inestimable work on the atonement. It is remarkable, in what a large proportion of cases, these inhuman sacrifices were connected with grove and garden worship in every part of the world. This last was properly the mystical sacrifice. We are informed that the custom was instituted in consequence of an example exhibited by Cronus, who is said to have been a god, and likewise a king of the country. It appears that this deity was called by the Phoenicians, Il; and in other places he is spoken of as the principal god. He had by the nymph Anobret one only son, who for that reason was called Jeoud, which in the language of Phoenicia expresses that circumstance. This son, in a time of great danger, either from war or pestilence, Cronus is said to have arrayed in a royal vesture, and to have led him thus habited to an altar, which he had constructed, and there sacrificed him for the public weal, to his father Ouranus. Such is the history, in which, if there be no more meant, than that a king of the country sacrificed his son, and that the people afterwards copied his example, it is an instance of a cruel precedent too blindly followed; but it contains in it nothing of a mystery. When a fact is supposed to have a mystical reference, there should be something more than a bare imitation. Cronus is said to be the same as Il, which is the identical name with the El of the Hebrews; and according to St. Jerome, was |