text:  The intellectual character the metaphysical belief and the religious sentiments and practices of the two nations were equally diverse; one adoring an invisible and eternal spirit at whose almighty word the universe started into existence and 'the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy;' the other adorning splendid temples with costly magnificence in which with mysterious and grotesque rites they paid a strange and portentous worship to some foul and grovelling object--a snake a tortoise a crocodile or an ape