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rational and true, embracing the proper notion of God as contained in the traditions of Noah. But the popular system em-braced all the abominations of idolatry. These wise men knew the popular system to be false and ruinous ; but in fear of popular indignation they forbore to say so, and hence let the people go to ruin. The tendencies of that popular system have been:
1. To blindness of mind. There was no true God in it, and hence there could be no light.
2. To looseness of morals. A firm be-lief in God and a knowledge of his law is the only hope of moral purity.
3. Divisions. This is the cause of so many tribes and languages.
4. Animosities. This first induced the tribes to make war upon and to sell each other. This opened the door to the slave trade. This was just the condition in which the slavers of Charles the Fifth found them in the sixteenth century; riven up,
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