cry, What are we to do?"

Anthropomorphism and Fetishism.--One of the last Emperors of the Shang
dynasty, Wu I, who reigned B.C. 1198-1194, even went so far as "to make
an image in human form, which he called God. With this image he used
to play at dice, causing some one to throw for the image; and if 'God'
lost, he would overwhelm the image with insult. He also made a bag of
leather, which he filled with blood and hung up. Then he would shoot at
it, saying that he was shooting God. By and by, when he was out hunting,
he was struck down by a violent thunderclap, and killed."

God indignant.--Finally, when the Shang dynasty sank into the lowest
depths of moral abasement, King Wu, who charged himself with its
overthrow, and who subsequently became the first sovereign of the Chou
dynasty, offered sacrifices to Almighty God, and also to Mother Earth.
"The King of Shang," he said in his address to the high officers who
collected around him, "does not reverence God above, and inflicts
calamities on the people below. Almighty God is moved with indignation."
On the day of the final battle he declared that he was acting in the
matter of punishment merely as the instrument of God; and after his
great victory and the establishment of his own line, it was to God that
he rendered thanks.

No Devil, No Hell.--In this primitive monotheism, of which only scanty,
but no doubt genuine, records remain, no place was found for any being
such as the Buddhist Mara or the Devil of the Old and New Testaments.
God inflicted His own punishments by visiting calamities on mankind,
just as He bestowed His own rewards by sending bounteous harvests in due
season. Evil spirits were a later invention, and their operations were
even then confined chiefly to tearing people's hearts out, and so forth,