The pagan gods were innumerable and their distinctive attributes were
understood. They well might be, as they were only deified men and
women. The next unfoldment caused them to raise altars to "the unknown
God." Then came Jesus, the Nazarene, who told them that the "unknown
God" was their Heavenly Father, not of a chosen people only, but of all
the human race. The new religion, inspired by Jesus--our Christ--and
which was to bear his name, naturally brought with it all the
superstitions of the pagans, and these have been handed down through
the ages, and accepted and believed as true.
The primitive conception of a god was of a being with qualities like
their own, and as men delighted in rapine and every possible
accompanying vice and crime, so they endowed their gods in like manner,
fashioning beings to be feared and to whom must be given big offerings
and sacrifices. So long as these were limited to beasts it was a good
thing, because the priests who ate the flesh thus consecrated were sure
of cheap meat for a long time thereafter. But when the "firstlings of
the flock" failed to bring satisfactory responses to the demands of the
suppliants, they began sacrificing human lives in the vain hope of
allaying the anger and vengeance of the dissatisfied all-powerful gods,
and beautiful young maidens were thrust into the fiery jaws of Moloch,
or crushed in the coils of sacred serpents, or slain upon altars
according to the special god whose propitiation was sought.
From all these inhuman practices to a recognition of a God of love and
mercy was a step so long that even yet there remain in the teachings of
religionists indications of similar ideas, wherein not only nature's
culminating efforts, but all the painful experiences of human beings
are accepted and feared as expressions of the "wrath of God."