of their families, would suffer them to depart from the truth? We read
of nothing that can incline us to this belief. Various have been the
conjectures concerning the authors of idolatry. Some believe it was
Serug, the grandfather of Terah, who first introduced idolatry after
the deluge. Others maintain it was Nimrod, and that he instituted the
worship of fire among his subjects, which continues even to this day
in some places in Persia. Others assert that Ham was the author of it,
and then his son Canaan; and it is most probable that the unfortunate
sons of an accursed father were the first who, following the
propensity of their own heart, sought out sensible objects to which
they might offer a superstitious worship. As the two sons of Ham,
Canaan and Mizraim, settled, the one in Phoenicia, and the other in
Egypt, it is probable that these were the first nurseries of idolatry;
and the sun, being looked upon as the purest image of the Creator, was
the first object of it. It is not probable that men would choose
beings like themselves for the first objects of their adoration.
Nothing could be more capable of seducing than the beauty and
usefulness of the sun, dispensing light and fertility all around. But,
to conclude, we must not imagine that all idolatry sprang from the
same country. It came by slow degrees, and those who made the first
advances towards this impiety, did by no means carry it to that
extravagant height to which it afterwards arrived."




CHAPTER III.


In college, young Burr formed intimacies which ripened into lasting