Volume 2

Moloch and Baal
369
forms in which it was formerly practiced. I saw priests
adoring serpents in presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament,
their different passions assuming the various forms
of those serpents. I sawall kinds of similar animals by
the side of learned and distinguished men. They adored
them while at the same time they thought themselves
above all religion! I saw toads and all kinds of hateful
creatures near poor, low, depraved people. I saw also entire
churches in the practice of idolatry, namely, a dark,
reformed church in the North with empty, horrible altars
upon which stood ravens receiving the adoration of the
congregation. The people saw not indeed such animals,
but they were adoring them in their own conceits and
haughty self-sufficiency. I saw ecclesiastics for whom little
distorted figures, little pugs, etc., were turning the
leaves of their breviary while they recited the Holy Office.
Yes, I saw with some even the idols of ancient
times, such as Moloch and Baal. They were placed on
the table among their books, and held sway over them. I
have seen them even presenting morsels of food to those
men who despised the holy simplicity of the children of
God, and made a mockery of it.
I saw that such horrors are as rife in our own day as in
the past, and that the visions of idolatry vouchsafed me
were not accidental. If the ungodliness and idolatry of
men of our own day could assume a corporeal form, if
their thoughts and sentiments could be reduced to exterior
acts, we should find the same idols existing now as
in days gone by.
When Jesus again left Dion, several heathens from the
pagan quarter approached Him very tinlidly. They had
heard of the wonderful cures He had effected in Gadara,
and they now brought their children to Him. Jesus cured
them and induced the parents to determine to receive
Baptism. After that He went with twelve disciples five
hours to the south and over the brook that flowed down