<pre style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">CELESTIAL PHENOMENA.
their carnival until Science struck the hour for unmasking.
.Tte costumes and masks have with us become materials
for- .studying ]t{i$ ty$tory of the human mind, but to know
theovve-nuist translate our senses back into that phase of
biirdWri early *exis*tehce, so far as is consistent with carry-
ing our culture with us.
Without conceding too much f o Solar mythology, it may
be pronounced tolerably clear that the earliest emotion of
worship was born out of the wonder with which man looked
up to the heavens above him. /The splendours of the morn-
ing and evening; the azure vault, painted with frescoes of
cloud or blackened by the storm ; the night, crowned with
constellations : these awakened imagination, inspired awe,
kindled admiration, and at length adoration, in the being
who had reached intervals in which his eye was lifted
above the earth. Amid the rapture of Vedic hymns to
these sublimities we meet sharp questionings whether
there be any such gods as the priests say, and suspicion is
sometimes cast on sacrifices. The forms that peopled the
celestial spaces may have been those of ancestors, kings,
and great men, but anterior to all forms was the poetic
enthusiasm which built heavenly mansions for them ; and
the crude cosmogonies of primitive science were probably
caught up by this spirit, and consecrated as slowly as
scientific generalisations now are.
Our modern ideas of evolution might suggest the reverse
of this — that human worship began with things low and
gradually ascended to high objects ; that from rude ages,
in which adoration was directed to stock and stone, tree
and reptile, the human mind climbed by degrees to the
contemplation and reverence of celestial grandeurs. But
the accord of this view with our ideas of evolution is appa-
rent only. The real progress seems here to have been
from the far to the near, from the great to the small. It
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<pre style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">ORDEAL OF FIRE AND WATER. 3
is, indeed, probably inexact to speak of the worship of
stock and stone, weed and wort, insect and reptile, as
primitive. There are many indications that such things
were by no race considered intrinsically sacred, nor were
they really worshipped until the origin of their sanctity
was lost ; and even now, ages after their oracular or sym-
bolical character has been fprgotten, the superstitions that
have survived in connection with such insignificant objects
point to an original association with the phenomena of the
heavens. No religions could, at first glance, seem wider
apart than the worship of the serpent and that of the
glorious sun ; yet many ancient temples are coverofl with
symbols ' combining sun and snake, and no form is more
familiar in Egypt than the solar serpent standing erect
upon its tail, with rays around its head.
Nor is this high relationship of the adored reptile found
only in regions where it might have been raised up by
ethnical combinations as the mere survival of a savage
symbol. William Craft, an African who resided for some
time in the kingdom of Dahomey, informed me of the
following incident which he had witnessed there. The
sacred serpents are kept in a grand house, which they
sometimes leave to crawl in their neighbouring grounds.
One day a negro from some distant region encountered
one of these animals and killed it. The people learning
that one of their gods had been slain, seized the stranger,
and having surrounded him with a circle of brushwood, set
it on fire. The poor wretch broke through the circle of
fire and ran, pursued by the crowd, who struck him with
heavy sticks. Smarting from the flames and blows, he
pushed into a river ; but no sooner had he entered there
than the pursuit ceased, and he was told that, having
gone through fire and water, he was purified, and might
emerge with safety. Thus, even in that distant and savage </pre>
