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It's fleein' here to this tea-meetin' an stravagin' yonder to some bit choir practise, an' here awa, there awa, until Ah dinna ken what's to be the end o' it! Aye, an' the next thing they've gotten intill their bit heids is that they must get a bit o' an idolatrous music boax for the kirk! Yon bit thistle heid o' a schoolmaister cam' till me aboot the thing the day; what d'ye think o' yon?"
Not primarily in its character of Oracle, but in its universal character of Pagan temple; not as an authentic distributor of counsels adapted to the infinite situations of its clients often very wise counsels; but as being ultimately engrafted on the stem of idolatrous religion as deriving, in the last resort, their sanctions from Pagan deities, and, therefore, as sharing constructively in all the pollutions of that tainted source.
Gehenna was the name of a deep, narrow valley, bordered by precipitous rocks, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which had been desecrated by human sacrifices in the time of idolatrous kings, and afterwards became the depository of city refuse and of the offal of the temple sacrifices. The other noun, rendered by the same English word Hell, is Hades, which means "covered," "unseen" or "hidden."
Until Mohammed arose among them, the Arab tribes, surrounded by Jews, Christians, and idolaters, had entertained a superstitious faith, compounded of the religious belief of their various neighbours and that of the ancient Sabaei. They fully credited the existence of genii, demons, and witchcraft, adored the stars, and offered idolatrous sacrifices.
From infancy to manhood I read every thought of her angelic heart; I became the purer by the study, and I loved my model with an idolatrous adoration. There was my error! But those sympathies, those hours are past. My heart will never throb as it has throbbed; never rejoice as it has rejoiced; for she who lived but for me, who doubled all my joys, is gone!
But to this day it is believed that vast stores of the precious metal still lie waiting the hand of the discoverer, the barbaric relics of a fierce and bloody religion, the creed of an idolatrous people; and many an explorer unrewarded has wasted his days amidst the traces of the ruined temples and tokens of a grand civilisation, scattered here and there amidst the forests and mountain fastnesses of the mighty Andes.
They reared no sacred temples, nor did they seem to worship idols, and yet some few antiquities have been preserved which would seem to indicate that the natives possessed grotesque images, half human and half animal, like Chinese gods in effect. These were wrought so rudely out of stone as hardly to convey any fixed idea; vague and imperfect, it is not safe to define them as idolatrous images.
Nor did the allegiance to Jehovah bar private usages of an idolatrous nature. The home of the average Israelite had its teraphim and other domestic divinities. The darker aspects of the popular religion still held their ground against the growing light.
Darby O'Drive to issue a formal challenge to any Popish and idolatrous bailiff in Ireland, to discuss with him the relative powers, warrants, processes, triumphs, conflagrations, and executions of their resspective churches." * This expression has been attributed to Faulkner, the printer of Swift's works; but it is much more likely that it belongs to the Dean himself.
As, after awhile, he walked slowly homewards, George Bullen asked himself the question: "How can it have come to pass, that in comparatively so short a time, it should be possible for all the world to be ready to yield an almost idolatrous obedience to one man?"
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