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that they might not lofe the benefit of fo meritorious an action.

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ONE common method of performing these facrifices was this. A huge image of the god Saturn, which was the fame with Moloch in the scriptures, was made of copper or braís, hollow within. The children destined for offerings to this pretended deity were inclofed within his ftatue, which was heated red-hot: it need not be added, that the poor innocents were confumed in the midst of the moft terrible torments. To drown the fhrieks of these miserable victims, it was usual to make a great noise by beating of drums and found+ ing of trumpets. The mothers of these un happy children efteemed it a point of ho nour, and a religious duty, to affift at thofe cruel fpectacles without lamenting or weep ing; and if a tear or a figh efcaped them, they apprehended that the facrifice would be lefs acceptable to the divinity, and the good fruits of it loft to themselves.

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THE Carthaginians, who learned this barbarous custom from the Tyrians their anceftors, when a plague happened among them, used to facrifice great numbers of children, without pity, says Justin", for those whose tender age excites compaffion in the most cruel enemies; seeking a remedy for their misfortunes

1 L. 18. c. 6. Cum peste laborarent, &c.

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misfortunes in their crimes, and themselves ufing barbarity to excite compaffion in the gods.

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DIODORUS SICULUS, as I find him quoted by Mr. Rollin, fays, that at the time when Agathocles was about to lay fiege to Carthage, the inhabitants of that city, seeing themselves reduced to the laft extremity, imputed their calamities to the juft anger of Saturn against them; because instead of the children of the principal nobility, whom they had been accustomed to facrifice to him, they had fraudulently fubftituted the children of ftrangers and flaves. To make amends for this fault, they offered to Saturn two hundred children of the beft families in Carthage. Befide thefe, more than three hundred citizens, who had been guilty of this imaginary crime, became alfo a voluntary oblation i

BUT the Mexicans feem to have outdone all other nations in this diabolical practice of human facrifices. The author of the civil and moral history of the Spanish West Indies, fays, that as these people never facrificed any but those they took in war, the province of Tlafcala was left unconquered by Montezuma, to afford a conftant fupply of captives for facrifice.

i Hiftoire Ancienne, T. I. p. 197, from Diod. Sic. 1. 8. p. 756..

facrifice.

Those who affifted in killing the victims were called minifters of holy things: their office was of high efteem, and paffed by inheritance. The chief of them was a bishop or pope, and gave the fatal ftroke.

In one particular facrifice they treated the flave that was to die in the most honourable manner for a whole year. They not only clad him in the robes and ornaments, but gave him the name of their idol, and allowed him the nobleft apartment in the temple. He was ferved with the richest food by all the chief minifters, and had none but great perfons about him, who kept a fstrict guard that he might not efcape. When he paffed through the streets, he was followed by a train of nobles, all the people came out of their houses to see him, and the women in particular prefented their children for his bleffing. After all these honours, or rather this cruel mockery, when the time of the feftival came, they ripped up the poor wretch's breaft, pulled out his heart, which they offered to the Sun, and then eat up his body.

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ACOSTA tells us, that the Mexicans facrificed every year to two idols two thousand five hundred men, fatted in pens; and that, when they were minded to do fignal honour to their gods, they fent out armies to bring in prifoners for a facrifice, whose flesh they afterwards

afterwards eat; and that Montezuma commonly facrificed twenty thousand men one year with another, and fome years no lefs than fifty thousand.

THE priests, it feems, were fo bloody, and had such an afcendant over the princes, that they made them believe their gods were angry, and would not be appeafed without four or five thousand men to facrifice, at certain times, in a day; so that, right or wrong, they must make war on their neighbours to procure thofe victims *.

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SUCH were the most abominable barbarities exercised, and the most enormous crimes perpetrated by men to expiate their fins, and avert the anger and conciliate the favour of their gods: but, had it not been for the cruelty of mens own hearts, and the tricks. and contrivances of priests, mankind undoubt edly would never have fuppofed that any other facrifices could be acceptable to the Deity, but thofe of their inordinate appetites and paffions. Vis Deos propitiare? bonus efto, faid a very fenfible heathen '.

I SHALL conclude this fhocking subject of human facrifices, with a few lines from Clytemnestra's fpeech to her husband Aga memnon, on the intended facrifice of their

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* Atlas Geographus, vol. V. p. 597, et seq. 1 Sen. epist. 95.

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daughter Iphigenia; by which the horrid ceremony is painted in ftrong and lively colours:

Un prêtre environné d'une foule cruelle,
Portera fur ma fille un main criminelle,
Déchirera fon fein, et d'un oeil curieuse
Dans fon cœur palpitant confultera les dieux".

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SECTION V.

HE third and laft head under which we propofed to confider religious cruelty, is, Mens inhuman treatment of one another on account of their different sentiments in religion, and different forms of worship.

ALL religions which did not proceed entirely from fuperftition, or were not contrived merely as engines of ftate, or to deceive the many for the fake of a few, must have been defigned for the good and benefit of mankind; particularly, to teach them to mortify fome paffions, regulate others, and render men peaceable, gentle, mild, compaffionate, and beneficent: and the better and more perfect any religion is, the more productive of thefe excellent fruits one would reasonably expect it fhould be: more efpecially, a religion which we are affured is instituted by God,

TM Oeuvres de Racine, tom. II. Iphigenie, tragedit.

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