These gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to
interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and
everything. They attended to every department. All was supposed to be
under their immediate control. Nothing was too small--nothing too
large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of planets were alike
attended to by these industrious and observing deities. From their
starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of
imparting information to man. It is related of one that he came amid
thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people they should not
cook a kid in its mother's milk. Some left their shining abode to tell
women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest
how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper
manner for cleaning the intestines of a bird.

When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed
and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally
visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some
other nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and
children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their
first born. The priests always did their whole duty, not only in
predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that
they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite
enough to them.

These gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most
powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged
to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each
of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves,
and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his
existence or suspected that some other God might be his superior; but