Turn ye not unto idols.
Folly of idolatry
A Chinese wife was one day seen by a missionary to enter a temple. In her hands were some humble offerings, such as a twig, or rice, for propitiating the poor, blind deity. There he stood, some forty feet high, blackened and begrimed with the smoke of incense for hundreds of years. She presented her petition; she called upon the idol to protect and return in safety her husband, then on the sea in a storm. A few weeks after the missionary was there, and saw the same female enter the temple in a rage. She stood before the grim idol and cursed it for being so blind, so deaf, so helpless, as to let her husband perish! Yes, the wailing widow of heathen life only echoed the sad complaints of millions in Christian lands. They found their hopes and build their plans on just such baseless, blind, deaf gods as this humble dweller in darkness. The worldling ever prays to a god that is deaf and blind I (VanDoren, D. D.)