Page:History of the Franks.djvu/64

32 HISTORY OF THE FRANKS lo. Now this people seems to have always been addicted to heathen worship, and they did not know God, but made them- selves images of the woods and the waters, of birds and beasts, and of the other elements as well. They were wont to worship these as God and to offer sacrifice to them. O ! would that that terrible voice had touched the fibers of their hearts which spoke through Moses to the people saying, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image nor worship any likeness of anything that is in heaven or on earth or in the water; thou shalt not make them and shalt not worship them." . . . And in Isaiah he speaks a second time : "I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no god and creator whom I do not know. They that fashion a graven image are all of them vanity, and the things that they delight in shall not profit them. They are themselves witnesses of what they are, that they do not see nor have understanding, and they are confounded in them. Behold all his fellows shall be put to shame, for the workmen are of men. On the coals and with hammers did he form it, and he worked it with his strong arm. In Hke manner, too, the carpenter fashioned it with compasses, and made the likeness of a man as if of a comely man dwelling in a house. He hewed down the wood, he worked and made a graven image, and worshiped it as a god, he fastened it with nails and hammers so that it should not fall to pieces. They are carried because they cannot walk ; and the remainder of the wood is prepared by men for the hearth and they are warmed. And from another he made a god, and a graven image for himself. He bends before it and worships it and prays, saying: 'Deliver me, for thou art my god. I burned half of it with fire ; and baked bread upon its coals ; I baked flesh and ate, and from the residue I shall make an idol, I shall worship before a wooden trunk; part of it is ashes.' The foolish heart worshiped it, and did not deliver his soul. And he does not say : ' Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand?'" The nation of the Franks did not understand at first ; but it understood later, as the following history relates. [ii. Avitus, citizen of Clermont, emperor of Rome, and bishop of Placentia.]