In the contest between Elijah and the priests of that deity, the prophet CHAP. VI. is described as addressing them in a strain of what has usually been considered as nothing more than severe irony.

Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is talking, or he is pursuing, ov he is in a journey; or per adventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.'

Now this is doubtless irony: but the force of it is greatly impaired by esteeming it mere irony; and the sense of the passage is likewise much obscured by a somewhat faulty translation. Elijah is not simply ridiculing the worship of the idolatrous priests; he is not taunting them, as it were, at random but he is ridiculing their senseless adoration, upon their own acknowledged principles; he is describing, with singular accuracy, the mythological attributes of the great transmigrating father; and, with redoubled energy, he is thus urging upon them the extreme absurdity of venerating such a being in the place of the all-wise and all-powerful Jehovah.

Cry with a loud voice, for he must certainly be a god: he is either wrapped in profound meditation; or he is occupied in wandering; or he is engaged in travelling; or perhaps he sleepeth, and must be awaked.

Every one of these particulars, so far from being casually mentioned, enters prominently into the character of the great father of gentile theology, and was devoutly received by his votaries as a mysterious point of belief. During the intermediate period between each two similar worlds, he was supposed, and throughout the east is still supposed, to float on the surface of the deluge; either inclosed in a wonderful egg and engaged in deep meditation on his own perfections, or reclining on some aquatic vehicle and wrapped in a profound and deathlike sleep. In this state he continues, while the waters prevail: but, when they retire, he awakes from his slumber to the energy of renovated exertion, and is manifested as the official creator of a new world. Such however is not the only part of his character, specified with poignant ridicule by the prophet of the true God. He alludes also to those frantic wanderings, for which Siva is no less celebrated in the east than Bacchus and Attis were in the west: and he distinctly notices those travels of conquest and civilization, which the great father, by whatever

' 1 Kings xviii. 27.

BOOK IV.

name he might be distinguished, whether by that of Osiris and Dionusus or of Saturn and Buddha and Deo-Naush, was universally supposed to have achieved.

All these particulars are touched upon by Elijah in his sarcastic address to the priests of Baal. Hence we must infer, to give the satire its full poignancy, that the character of that god was the received character of the great father.

END OF VOL. II.