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Show 280 TilE J,II)}:J\'J'\' UELL. (•xtcrnal form they may fashion into such shape as they think terrible or amiable; but the qualities shadowed forth arc those they most prize in themselves. rrho Olympian Jove, tho Phidian Venus, tho p,·axitclian Apollo, and tho host of olhcr deities of the elder world, were nll hut projections of the inner life of their worshippers. Odin did not drink blood out of tho skulls of his enemies in the Valhalla., because he liked it ; but because the Scandinavians did. So with all other false gods. No I conoclasm can put down idolatry. It is only by tho regeneration of tho heart and mind, that the fierce and gloomy sl1adows that brood over the hearts of so many nations can be put to flight. rrhc inner necessity ceasing, the external symbol of it will disappear at the same time. Tho guilt of I dolutry consists not so much in tho mere bowing Jown to stocks and stones, as in the identifying with those graven images all that is worst in ourselves, and making that our god. The llishonor we do to tho 'l1ruc God consists mninly in the deification of 281 our own vices and b 1 r . • Ul qua LiLes, and putting them upon ll1s throne. So 'dh tho Idols of Ch .· I d • • I LS en om. 'l'hat wor-slup IS governed by tho &·uno la. , • \\8 as any other kmd of Fetichism . 0 n1 y our 1,; cliches arc usually men of like passions with ourselves, and the wor-ship wo giyc them is thus divested of all . . . . • prcsttge of tmagma.twn or antiquity. But a man represents us, and wo deify him. Napoleon expressed. the France of his day, and he still " rules her from his urn. , Washington inearnaU:ld the Idea of Colonial Indcpendcnco, and he hns taken his place among tho gods. Wellington gathered up tho average of English feelings and ideas, and the great mass of the nation has aeceptccl him as it.s Exponent. Tho idol rofloots tho features of tho men that set him up, and they are thus bound to defend his godhead. An assault on their god is an attack upon themselves, and it is not merely piety, but solf-dcfcnoc, to ropol it. They must provo his vices to be no vices, but the best of vil'- 24• |