There is scarcely a single article in our current belief which does not prove, on examination, to have descended to us from Pagan sources, or to be identical with heathen beliefs older than the Hebrew. The idea of a personal God dwelling in some locality, vaguely described as "Heaven," in which He reigns, and rules, like a modern emperor, has been found to exist in almost every nation whose language we know, and whose history has descended to us. Human weakness makes it so. Such a ruler has been called Brahma, Siva, Vishnu, Mahadeva, Bel or Baal, Melech or Moloch, Ormazd, Elohim, Jah, Jehovah, Jupiter, Yahu, God, and a variety of other names; but He has always been hailed as king, and lord of all creation, having a throne beside which attend a number of servitors, standing before and around him, all ready to do his bidding and to go wherever they are sent. As a potentate rules on earth over provinces far distant from the central government, so the heavenly monarch was, and is yet, supposed to have "viceroys," "lieutenants," or "vicars," who have authority delegated to them, and exercise it under his superintendence.
A scheme such as we have described does not seem to have existed from the first amongst the Jews; for, when men of reasoning powers conceived the idea of a Creator, He was regarded as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. It became gradually interwoven with theology; for when men of limited capacity thought of such a vast empire as the universe, they, under the influence of a grovelling anthropomorphism, recognized, as they imagined, the necessity of furnishing it with a system of acquiring intelligence, and promulgating decrees which should be far superior to any postal plan devised by human kings. Amongst the Kaffirs, men with missives race against time, and by means of relays, messages are sent to vast distances in a comparatively short period. By means of horses, skilfully engaged beforehand, an ancient Persian tyrant could make his commands known all over his vast empire in the course of a few days, and moderns, by means of railways and the electric wire, can forward information at a still more rapid rate.