clean of abominations, which had grown to an intolerable height. Bel bowed down, and Nebo had to stoop before them. Babylon, the lady of kingdoms, was laid in the dust, and 'her stargazers and her astrologers and her monthly prognosticators' could not save her with all their skill. They and she were borne away together. Egypt's turn followed. Retribution had been long delayed, but her cup ran over at last. The palm-groves were flung into the river, the temples polluted, the idols mutilated. The precious Apis, for all its godhood, was led with a halter before the Persian king, and stabbed in the sight of the world by Persian steel.
'Profane!' exclaimed the priests, as pious persons, on like occasions, have exclaimed a thousand times: 'these Puritans have no reverence for holy things.' Rather it is because they do reverence things which deserve reverence that they loathe and abhor the counterfeit. What does an ascertained imposture deserve but to be denied, exposed, insulted, trampled under foot, danced upon, if nothing less will serve, till the very geese take courage and venture to hiss derision? Are we to wreathe aureoles round the brows of phantasms lest we shock the sensibilities of the idiots who have believed them to be divine? Was the Prophet Isaiah so tender in his way of treating such matters?
