1042 ! y l 1 1042 >y 1 GHOSTS, Devils, Angels AND SUN GODS.^^ A SERIES OF ESSAYS AGAINST Superstition, By "P. RUSTICUS. [COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY THE AUTHOR.] Copiks of this Book may be had by addressing Box 36, Truxton, Cortland Co., N. Y. Price, post paid, %-5 < *-' OR PER DOZEN. The following works have been freely consulted and drawn from in the preparation of these essays : Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy, Tylor's Primitive Culture, Conway's Demon- ology and Devil Lore, Fiske's Myths and Myth-makers, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Goldziher's Mythology among the Hebrew r s, Bible Folk-lore, Morris' Sigurd the Volsung, Barnes' General History, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyc- lopaedia of Abraham Rees, Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, White's Warfare of Science, Darwin's Origin of Man, Beal's Legend of Buddha, Arnold's Light of Asia, Jone's Credulities Past and Present, Goodwin's Pioneer History of Cortland Co., Keary's Dawn of History, Carpenter's Mental Physi- ology, Bjorstrom's Hypnotism, Schultze's Fetichism. ♦ ♦ ©ec|ieation. ♦ ♦ /po my honored patter, Wfyose sympatic inferesf in tfyese studies fyas been a constant and delightful encouragement toWard tfyeif pursuit; \AHtl7 tfye l?ope, tfyat a glimmer of ligfyt may be tfyro\A)r\ ir\ some corners of t^ World, \A)l?icl? t^e sfyadoWs of superstition fyatfe previously darkened ; tl?is little book is affectionately dedicated. ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦ TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. I. Ghosts 3 II. Devils „ io III. Angels 21 IV. Samson, the Hebrew Sun-God 28 V. Sigurd, the Teutonic Sun-God 36 VI. Heracles, the Greek Sun-God • 46 VII. Jonah and his Colleagues 57 VIII. The Garden of Eden 63 IX. Noah an d the Del uge ... 69 X. Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ,— A Parallel 75 XI. The Fated 13 83 XII. The Mystic 3 87 XIII. Tioughnioga 93 XIV. The Evolution of the Family 97 XV. The Divining Rod 104 XVI. The Clairvoyant 108 XVII. Our Colored Brother Hypnotic 115 XVIII. The Separation of Church and School 117 GHOSTS. Most people say they do not believe in ghosts. "Ghosts are imma- terial things, do not reflect light, and therefore can not be seen ; they have no vocal chords, do not produce sound-waves, therefore can not be heard ; they have no substance, do not resist pressure, therefore can not be felt." And so these logical individuals proceed to argue defenceless spirits out of existence. But you will not find them loitering carelessly about a graveyard after dark ; neither do they enjoy to any great extent, the privilege of sleeping near a corpse. A doctor's skeleton in the house will often disturb their slumbers slightly. They do not object to such ideas as "giving up the ghost," and, when they have "shuffled off this mortal coil," they expect to enter the "vale of shadows." Perchance they attend church of a Sunday and mumble off among other curious statements that they believe in the Holy Ghost. They retain the dual conception of man ; that he consists of two parts — the body tangible and real, and a spirit or soul, an indefinite fog-bank, which flits gently away at death, up somewhere into ethereal space. The name has been refined of late, changed from ghost to spirit, but the essential notion of primitive man still permeates our thought. And to the saving of this vaporous emanation of the savage brain from the fancied vengeance of an anthropomorphic god many persons devote the larger part ot their life. The plain, simple idea, that man consists of an organism and its functions, will not do. That the soul is a summation of activities, of moving, feeling, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing, sensing, perceiving, remembering, imagining, dreaming, thinking, hating, loving, reason- ing — that it really consists of immaterial things, is too clear an idea to be generally accepted. No, these soul elements must be wrapped in a blanket of mystery and given a form, so that people may worry about its being lost. How did man ever come to think of himself as a body with a ghost inside ? Such a question asked a hundred years ago would only have 4 GHOSTS. led to a perplexing network of conjectures. But to-day, thanks to the men who have been patiently working in the realms of primitive cul- ture, we have an easy answer. It is now generally admitted by all thinkers worthy the name, that civilization has everywhere emerged by a slow growth from savagery. The proofs are accumulative and are becoming so overwhelming in quantity, that the wonder now is, how the world ever thought other- wise. Each science bearing upon the history of man continues to pour in its volumes of evidence. Geology uncovers a stone age, in every part of the earth where search has been made— tens of thousands of years, probably hundreds of thousands, when man knew not the use of iron. Philology proclaims a corresponding growth of words out of crude and simple roots. A study of the art ol writing shows that all our alphabets are remnants of the rude pictures of the savage. Our numerical system is based on the number ten, because our ancestors counted on their fingers. But why continue this enumeration ? The difficulty is not to find evidence, but to choose from the mass which crowds upon the attention. When it is wished to discover the origin of an interesting superstition like that of ghosts, which has haunted man in multitudinous forms throughout historic times, we ask, what did our pre-historic forefathers think about it ? And straightway we begin to study the notions of barbaric and savage peoples. The whole matter clears up ; we are cherishing the relics of man's childhood state, we feel mortified and look about for more sensible conceptions. Upon a moonlight night a young Indian brave steals out alone, bent upon the capture from a neighboring tribe of a maiden for his wife. Silently gliding along by his side he notices a dark form, flitting over logs and mosses, keeping close to him, sympathizing in his every act. With mind unversed in science he gives the simple explanation of a child — it is his other self. Kneeling at a spring of water he takes a good long draught in nature's way, and there, beneath the surface, kissing his lips and gazing into his eyes, is his second, drinking also. GHOSTS. J Think you he understands the theory of reflected images ? As well suppose him acquainted with Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychol- ogy"! Weary with forcing his way through clinging bushes and of clambering over sinking bogs, he lies down beneath a friendly oak and wrapping his blanket around him goes off to sleep. "Goes off," did I say ? Why, that is his own idea of slumber ! How the words tarry with us ! Yes, he believes that his shadow leaves the body and flies unimpeded over hills and valleys — back perhaps to his village home. It meets and talks with his comrades, his brother, his father. Then away to* the hunt ! And never before flew arrow truer into the heart of the stag. Next it confronts an old and hated enemy and hand to hand they writhe and strain till his knife slips gurgling betwixt the ribs of his foe. Now with his Indian maiden, his spirit drinks love from her dark eyes, while an unconscious smile plays coyly about the features of the deserted body. But soon the Sun God enters upon his daily hunt along the heavens, and back to its companion speeds the wandering ghost. When it re-enters his senseless form the Indian youth awakes. Think not for a moment that the picture is unreal ; such in fact are the actual thoughts of savage people, reported by many careful observers. The word for soul in barbaric languages often means also shadow, and we combine these significations when we call upon the "shades" of Shakespeare. Sickness to a savage is the temporary departure of his second, and he trembles lest its place be taken by an evil spirit ; hence our expres- sion, "taken sick." If he becomes very weak and faints, his ghost has gone away, and when it comes back and re-enters the body, "he is himself again." In violent attacks and fits of all sorts his other self has been displaced by a devil and he is thoroughly "possessed." Death is the final departure of the ghost from the body ; it is then free to wander whither it wills. But the savage believes that it hovers near the corpse, loth to leave its companion, to which it has been so long and dearly attached. Remnants of such notions make us shudder as 6 GHOSTS. we gaze through the bars of a triDrgue or look upon the features of a "departed" friend. Another coincidence catches the attention of primitive man ; the soul and breath depart together. They must be one he says ; and hence their names come down to us, freighted with the double meaning : geist'm German and its cognate, ghost, in English both mean "breath," and our word, spirit, is the Latin spiritus from "spirare," to breathe. The Seminole's new-born babe is held over the face of its dying mother to catch this parting breeze. The Tyrolese still fancy they can see the good man's ghost issue from his mouth, as he dies, like a little white cloud, and the Greek warrior believed that it came floating out in the blood that issued from a mortal wound and escaped to pass at once to the realms below. To show the vividness and intensity of these ghost conceptions we will condense a few statements from Mr. Tylor's most interesting work on Primitive Culture. The Algonquin Indians could hear the shadow- souls of the dead chirp like crickets. New Zealand spirits, coming to converse with the living, utter their words in whistling tones. The Iroquois used to leave an opening in the grave, and still bore holes in the coffin, to let the spirit out. The Chinese made a hole in the roof for the same purpose. In France, Germany and England, peasants still open a window or door for the departing soul's convenience, The Queensland aborigines would beat the air in an annual mock fight to scare away the ghosts of the dead of that year. North American In- dians have been known to set nets about their cabins to catch and keep out the spirits of their neighbors ; and a widow leaves her hus- band's funeral, followed by a friend, who flourishes a handful of twigs about her head to free her from his ghost, that she may marry again unfettered. Negro widows duck themselves in the river to accomplish the same end. With a kindlier feeling the Congos abstain for a whole year after a death from sweeping the house, lest the dust should injure t he delicate substance of the spirit. The German peasant mother warns her careless little daughter not to slam the door for fear of pinch- GHOSTS. 7 ing a soul in it. There is a pathetic German superstition that the dead mother's coming back to suckle her child may be known by the hollow pressed down in the bed where she lay. The belief that ghosts have weight is further shown by an alleged spiritualistic reckoning at from three to four ounces. The "second" is thought to be like the material part in form and wants ; hence to disable it, the corpse of a fallen enemy is often muti- lated, a thumb is cut off so that it cannot throw a spear. The ghost of the warrior will need its bow and arrows and other weapons, so they are carefully placed near the body at death. Especially is it thought of vital importance to furnish a generous supply of food, for ghosts are always good eaters. But when the vituals are left untouched, the friends conclude that only nourishing shadows have been needed, and so fall to with zeal and devour the substantial part themselves. When priestcraft develops, this part of the program goes to them, and here we have the beginning of that long series of pious frauds practiced on the credulity ot the world in all climes and times — the bringing in of offerings for the propitiation of sins, which offerings fall neatly into the laps of the wily, ecclesiastical prestidigitators. With characteristic consistency the child of the forest awards a ghost to every inanimate object ; for they all have shadows, and they appear to him in his dreams. This is an important step in that personification of nature, which leads to his complicated worship called fetticism, out of which have developed our modern religions. Before he cuts down a tree, he invokes forgiveness of its spirit and pleads the dire necessity which urges him to the deed. Around an expiring deer the hunters gather and beg pardon of the ghost for depriving it of a body, pleading the need of something to eat. No tribe will kill the animal from which it is supposed to spring — its totem — for thus an ancestral spirit will be left bodiless. The belief in*transmigration of the soul does not seem so strange, now that its origin is disclosed ; if animals are thought to contain the shadows of forefathers, how easily may follow the idea that these souls are destined to pass from one animal to another through a 8 GHOSTS. long series. No distinction could be held between objects upon the earth and in the air and heavens above it. Hence the winds as they moan and whistle, the clouds as they gather and roll, the lightning as it darts and shatters, the moon as it waxes and wanes, and the sun as it warms and illumines — all are human. Their spirits are feared and worshiped according as they appear to be powerful for good or evil. And thus amidst a confusion of nature ghosts and ancestor ghosts, ghosts of friends and ghosts of enemies, ghosts of earth and ghosts of the heavens, the poor child of the woods is completely entangled in a plexus of dreaded, mysterious, animated, intangible beings. Thus has arisen our belief in ghosts ; they are tattered remnants of primitive ideas. A hard task it is to expel a disease that runs in the blood. But there are other reasons why this superstition is persistent. Mischievous boys often dress up in sheets and "like to die laughing" over the discomfiture of nervous people. But independent of such jokes, people do actually see ghosts. For the explanation of this statement a little close thought will be necessary. The optic apparatus may be considered as a little camera, the eye-ball, throwing an image upon a delicate, concave, sensitive screen, the retina. Millions of fibres lead from all points of this sur- face back through the optic nerve to the portion of the brain especially concerned with sight, the optic lobes. When light forms a picture upon the retina, it does so by acting as an irritant at all the points upon which it falls, and the fibre corresponding to each point carries back its message to the lobes as a wave of isomeric change. Object- ively, interpreted by some one else, the effect is a bundle of nervelets transmitting delicate vibrations to a co-ordinating center ; subjectively, interpreted by the person himself, it is form and color. These are two faces of the same phenomenon. Now as the causes of such irritations are usually outside the body, we learn to attribute the sensation to an external object. But the optic lobes are closely connected with the other co-ordinating centers of the brain and may be excited from within. Incapable of any other feeling than that of sight, all such ex- GHOSTS. 9 'citations produce vision. During sleep these are experienced by every- body and are noticeable because the more vivid pictures coming; through the eye-ball are cut off. Dreams are reproductions of past -experiences and the wierd effects are caused by the curious ways in which they combine. Sleep is our mental kaleidoscope, where pri- mary feelings make an infinite variety of scenes by coming into new juxtapositions. Some of these elements are hereditary and not per- sonal, which adds much to the complexity of the pictures. Hand to hand struggles with bears and snakes, frequent dreams of many per- sons, cannot be attributed to their experience, but must be traced back to ancestral times ; they are reverberations of actual contests, that took place long ago, and have left their traces in the brain mechanism. When dream scenes are very vivid, they are easily confused with wakeful ones, and especially liable is this to occur just at the time of opening the eyes. Figures of persons will remain on the mind for some moments, clearly defined, and then fade away into a washstand or chair or overcoat. Prepossessed with a belief in spirits it is per- fectly natural to interpret these phantoms as ghosts. When the brain is unduly flushed with blood, as in delirium tremens, or the ecstacy of tfte fasting fanatic, such visions are seen during wakefulness. Some * persons from their very make-up are peculiarly susceptible to these hallucinations. But keep it ever clearly in mind that the cause is inter- nal. Two persons do not see the ghost at the same time ; to the nor- mal brain it is invisible ; plainly then the trouble is within the skull of the one who does see it. It may be well here to remember all the curious things which the hypnotized person sees and how the audience roars with laughter as they behold him deluded by his subjective pic- tures. Not so remarkable is the clothing by the imagination of an indefinite form with definite shape and features. Passing through a cemetery at night the white tombstones look like human beings, and the impression is not lessened by the chipmucks who rustle about upon the leaves. At a spiritualistic seance a woman covered over with gauze will be interpreted as six or seven departed dear ones of both TO DEVILS. sexes by as many different viewers in the same evening. But the little flash-light camera dispels the illusion and throws the dame into hyster- ics ; at Buffalo a good photograph of the Mentor, Ohio, medium was lately secured by an "amateur" who had smuggled in his instrument unawares. Gradually science is dispelling these horrid relics of bygone dark- ness. So many have been cleared away that we are often led to con- clude that now the mental air is pure about us, and we may look straight into crystal facts. .Far from it ! Murky with superstition are our daily thoughts. Those who assume to enlighten their fellows and are most dogmatic in voicing their notions of man and life too often bring forth more fanaticism than truth. With the hand of orthodoxy they seek to throttle investigation. They forget that truth and error poured into the test-tube of reason and shaken by discussion form a black precipitate ; they seem to be in doubt as to which must go to the bottom. DEVILS. Of all the cruel customs which have come down to civilization from savagery, perhaps the most heartless is that of filling the minds of chil- dren with notions of devils, Purgatory and Hell. Why should a human being be launched upon this life of trouble loaded down with more ter- rors than really exist ? The genuine evils of actual fact are numerous and formidable enough for the average person to meet and overcome ; why multiply these by preserving the crude imaginings of barbarism ? To the mind of a timid child these demoniacal conceptions are vivid and real. They haunt the little brain by day and night. It cannot escape these terror-fraught phantoms imposed by adults who ought to have known better. Let the mother tremble, who mentions before her child the name of the devil, except in derision or to explain its fictitiousness ! She is committing a sin far more heinous than many she seeks to correct DEVILS. II in the little one. She is planting in fruitful soil a germ idea which may develop into a hydra, coiling itself forever around the tree of thought. Happy indeed is the child born of intelligent parents and so taught as to grow up laughing at such crudities. Hereditary modes of thinking are slow to change. Devils have always haunted the minds of men and they will continue to do so long after science has laid the delusion bare ; and upon this tendency to cling to the superstitions of the past there will always be a class of men ready to play, at the expense of their victims and to the substantial profit of themselves. They will keep on calling friends of the devil thoughtful men, who are doing all in their power to drive him out of the minds of humanity. They will classify among Satan's hosts persons who deny him an existence and a place of residence. Is it not evident that these anxious ones themselves are they who fear the loss of an old ally, a silent partner in trade, a dear bosom friend ? From observing his shadow, from seeing his image in the water, from dreaming and the like, primitive man concluded that he had two selves, the body and the ghost. The latter was wont to leave the for- mer and fly afar upon excursions. At death it went out for ever, though often it hovered for a time around its companion. Especially was this the case if the funeral ceremonies had not been properly performed or the body had been left to lie unburied. The ghosts of such would walk as demons. "Ha !" says the Slavonic folk-lore, "with a shriek the spirit flutters from the mouth, flies up to ihe tree, from tree to tree, hither and thither, till the dead is burned." How natural for the prim- itive man to believe that the ghost of his enemies would hover about after death seeking revenge ! We paint the devil black, but the negro, persecuted by Caucasians, paints him white. His name at Mozambique means Wicked White Man. Naglok (snakeland) was at an early period a Hindu name for hell, but the Nagas were a tribe of Ceylon, enemies believed to be born of a serpent. The wide spread belief in Werewolfs, men changed into beasts, was largely the result of demonizing hostile tribes. The land of foes was thought to be filled with devils ; thus Eng- S2 DEVILS. land was looked upon by continental peoples as a foggy realm of fiends. Giants and cUvarfs are imagined amongst the enemy, working evil, the one by superior size, the other by cunning. But not only men were conceived to have ghosts but also what to us are inanimate objects. And now if we can think of nature personified — every tree and pebble, fire, winds, water, earth, air, clouds — ghosts everywhere, above, below, within, without— we are in the right state of mind to appreciate how men came to believe in demons. Devils are the personifications of all the evils to which human flesh falls heir. The word Satan means adversary ; he represents the summation of the forces that resist mankind. Man's first bitter struggle wasfor something to eat. With rude imple- ments of stone and bone, he must hook his fish, bring down his bird, or slay his beasts of the forest. He saw the animals also fighting for food, killing and devouring one another. Everywhere was dogged resistance to his efforts to live. Surely hunger demons must be abroad, who demand all these good things for themselves. This was his expla- nation and from it grew up a host of hunger-fiends. The Karens of Africa represent their devils as a huge stomach floating in the air. The terrible Miru of the South Sea Islands attracted a flock of souls to the branches of a bua tree covered with fragrant blossoms, which then sunk down to the nether world where they were cooked in a mighty oven. In Travancore and other districts of India the demons are pic- tured with monstrous mouths and pot bellies. A widespread expla- nation of the eclipse of the sun is that a demon dog is devouring it. In most illustrations of devils they are represented as lean and hungry; "however fair in front he may be, you may detect him by the hollow- ness of his back, and he is usually too thin to cast a shadow." To appease the hunger of these demons food must be sacrificed. So the Hindu people cast victuals out of the window during an eclipse and the Highlanders of Scotland make the Beltane cake on the first of May and dedicating its fragments to the birds and beasts of prey, beseech the devil to spare the herds. All over the world gifts of fruits and meats DEVILS. 13 are freely offered to relieve the craving appetites of these demons. If it necessitates a sacrifice on the part of the devotee, so much the better, for the devil will appreciate the food all the more. Hence comes the universal custom of religious fasting. It is needless to say that priestcraft will encourage this superstition, for from the drippings of the altar a nice little living may easily be caught. Next to hunger fire is most dreaded by savage man, and his idea of burning is not far removed from that of eating ; the fire demon has an insatiable appetite. Agni was adored by the Hindus as the twin brother of Indra, their sungod. Closely connected with the name of this fire- god is our word igneous. In that dread valley of Tophet or Gehenna, where the filth of Jerusalem was consumed, "where the worm died not and the fire-was not quenched," was built the idol of Moloch. It was of brass, its head being that of a calf and its stomach a furnace. Children were placed in its arms and burned to death while drums were beaten to drown their cries. From this sacrifice to a fire demon, in the valley ofHinnom, has come the popular conception of an everburning fur- nace prepared for the majority of human beings. Barbarous in its origin, monstrous in its growth, it has terrified the ignorant for many centuries, but, thanks to men who are not afraid to speak out their con- victions, its horrid mental curse is fading. The Chinese pay especial tribute to their fire demon, which fills the place of our Satan in their hearts, and in San Francisco may be seen, brought to our very shores, the joss burners celebrating before its image their Feast of the Dead. The quencher of fire is water ; hence devils fear it ; cross a river when pursued and you are safe ; be baptized in the Ganges or Jordan or rep- resentatives — sprinkle yourself with holy water and the devil cannot harm you. What a host of ceremonies have grown out of this idea ! When man conquered fire and made it his servant some of its fiends became kindly. There is the red-jacketed Kobold of Germany, who hovers around the fireside ; and about the cheerful hearth-stone dwells many a tricky imp and witch, lugging off shovels, tongues and brooms, at times to ride upon in their caperings. These are the pleasanties of demonology. 14 DEVILS. Our forefathers were no more pleasantly disposed toward cold than heat. In northern latitudes each winter found them fighting against ice and storms, longing for the deliverance of spring, "then" said they, "Sun-god will slay the Great Serpent." Our word hell is derived from the name of the cold-demoness of northern Europe. She presided over an icy hole in mist and darkness. It was called her home, Helheim. So, that Cortland county youth, who remarked one zero morning that it was "cold as hell," was simply going back to original meanings. The northman's dream of Paradise was a rose garden in the South, whose glowing charms, with beauty for their queen, could only be won by the killing of the huge serpent, which ruled the surrounding glassy sea. It used to be the custom in England to bury persons destined for heaven in the southern or warm side of the church yard, the northern portion being reserved for unbaptized infants and executed criminals ; thus both classes were properly started in the direction of their respec- tive destinations. The word hades has a history similar to that of hell, being first applied to a frigid place and afterward to a hot one. Thus man builds for himself the sort of future he most dreads. In all north- ern countries rites are still celebrated to typefy the death of Winter and the birth of Spring. Puppets thrown into ponds, devil effigies burned, tar-barrel bonfires built, demon images whipped ; such are the exultations over the victory. This annual struggle was humanized as Sigurd killing Fafnir and winning the Treasure of Andvari ; it was spirit- ualized as Christ conquering Death and gaining immortal life. The wintry desolation is still imitated in Lent and the triumph in Easter. Easter eggs are symbols of the reproductive powers of nature once more set free from the bondage of cold. How does savage men explain the thunder peal, the lightning flash, the roaring wind, water spouts, floods, inundations and tides? Each is a demon seeking his destruction. In the Rig Veda of India there is a hymn to Rudra (the Roarer) beginning: "Sire of the storm-gods, let thy favor extend to us." A familiar passage, "I beheld Satan as light- ning falling out of heaven," bespeaks a universal belief in a tumble, DEVILS. 15 that makes devils generally lame, at least in one leg. Dr. Schliemann has unearthed a temple of Helios (the sun) near the church of Elias, at Mycenae. Here the Christians, like the Pagans before them, pray for rain. Once it was Helios now it is Elias, who rides in his chariot of fire ; time has produced little change even in the name. In India Per- janya was "the thunderer, the showerer, the bountiful, who strikes down trees and the wicked. " Thunder demons are everywhere present and their bolts are found all over the surface of the earth. Geologists cruelly dispel the poetry of this belief by proving them fossils of extinct animals or other well-known rock formations. When a violent tempest arises the Cantonese say, "The Bobtailed Dragon is passing by." This demon was once overfaithful to a friend and in an unguarded moment lost his caudal appendage. His temper was soured and he has been tempestuous ever since. Out of Lake Titicaca in South America rises Viracvcha and journeys with lightnings for all opposers to disappear in the Western Ocean. "The sea became troubled," says the Arabian Nights, "and there arose a black pillar ascending toward the sky, and behold it was a Jinn (devil) of gigantic stature." Such are the water- spout demons. In the Apocalypse we read, "The Serpent cast out of his mouth a flood of water after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away." From cuneiform inscriptions of Egypt we learn, that the terrible Seven, whom even the God of Fire can not control, "break down the banks of the Abyss of Waters." Tartak of the Bible is "the great destroyer," the God of the Tigris river. Leviathan "maketh the deep to boil like a pot." In the Chaldaeo— Babylonian cosmogony Anu ruled over the heavens, Bel over the surface of the earth and the atmosphere, Nouah in the under world. Nouah is the Assyrian Hea or Savior, the Noah of the Bible. When Tiamat the Dragon, the Leviathan, opens "the fountains of the deep" and Anu "the windows of heaven," Hea or Noah saves the life of man. The torrent which, cut off in one direction, makes progress in others, is demonized as a many-headed hydra. In California the Devil's Tea- kettle and Devil's Mushpot repeat the Devil's Punch-bowls and 1 6 DEVILS. innumerable Devil's Dikes and Ditches in Europe. But the kindly dealings of these forces of nature were also deified ; from the churned ocean rose Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity, and from the sea foam came Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Beauty. Emerson felt this spirit in the northmen and passed it down in — "The gale that wrecked me on the sand, It helped my rowers to row ; The storm is. my best galley hand, And drives me where I go." Man's earliest battles were hand-to-hand fights with animals and every beast that could do him harm has been demonized. The hedge- hog for his spines, the fox for his cunning, rats for their gnawing, lions for their power, cats for their blackness, dogs for running mad, wolves for their ferocity, the boar for its power to defy snakes, the bear for its hugging propensities, and most of all the snake, the slimy, insinuating, poisonous serpent. Though he retains his horns and hoofs, Satan is still that "Old Arch Serpent." The Hindus, believing that famine was due to the will of Indra, their Sun God, have covered India with temples to soothe his injured feel- ings. In the midst of Egyptian barrenness looms up the Sphinx — the binder — in honor of the unyielding demon of the desert. Plagues, hurricanes, pests of all sorts, are due the world over to offended gods ? and a little introspection will discover the same beliefs still rampant in the educated nineteenth century heart. Many interesting demons have grown out of the personification of natural obstacles. Mountains are inhabited by devils who break the legs of travelers risking the ascent. Lot dared not escape to the mountains "less some evil overtake him!" Numerous altars are erected in these "high places" to counteract the fiends and many summits thus become sacred. But when the land is conquered by another people, bringing a new religion with new gods, the devotees see only demon-shrines in these altars. And so the conflict goes on from the cursing of the "high places " by the priests of Israel to the Devil's Pulpits of the Alps and Apennines. Ten-jo, the long-nosed, is DEVILS. 1 7 a curious example of a mountain demon in Japan. He inhabits mount O-yama and natives dare not invade his crags, nor will they willingly allow " infidel Christians" to do so. The chief god of the Peruvians was Apocatequil who piled up mountain ranges for his castles and from the peak-towers hurled down rocks upon the plains. The Tyro- lese Alps are full of such beings. Devils are always opposed to bridge building, and naturally enough, for what difficulties are greater than spanning chasms. Many are the Devil's Bridges and many the scape- goats sent first across a completed structure to appease the wrath of the offended demon. Christianity baptizes these pagan rock-devils, gives them a Bible interpretation and a new name, but never expels them. When the modern engineer comes on the scene, backed by science, capital and steam, he bores a hole straight through the demon's realm and strings a magic trestle beautifully over his dizzy abyss. Then, as the resounding locomotive rolls fearlessly through the bosom of the awful mount, the natives begin to feel that there is power above their gods. With feverish brow and thirsty throat the child-man of the desert ran eagerly toward the water-promising mirage and beheld it mysteriously vanish ; his habitual explanation came readily into play and he called it Bahr Sheitan, Devil's Water. The northman, wandering cold in the night, sees a fitful fire in the distance and hastens thence only to tum- ble into a bog ; it is the devil with his ignis fatuus, fool's fire. An insect mimicking closely the stem of a plant is labeled the Devil's Walking Stick. Upon a projecting cliffof the Rhine sings the Lorelei, luring her lovers and their little boats to disaster upon the rocks below. Mermaids of the sea, swan-maidens of the air, sirens of all sorts are female personifications picturing the dangerous character of love. Men follow them enchanted to their ruin. Such are the demons of delusion. Who does not fear the night ? When we sink into slumber, when the pulse beats slowe'r and the breath slackens its rhythm, when the tide of life is at its ebb, then are we weak in every way. Then does 1 8 DEVILS. timidity seize the bravest heart. Then are we conquered by thoughts which we loathe in the daylight. Then may evil deeds be perpetrated unseen. How natural that Satan should be the Prince of Darkness ! To children and to the child-man he seems ever near at night. To primitive man day and night were in a constant warfare. Light was swallowed up by Darkness. Night was the cavern where lay con- cealed the treacherous Panis (fog) who stole and hid away Indra's cows (the clouds.) Night was the realm of Hades (the invisible,) the cave of the hag Thoekk ^darkness.) In the cavern of night slumbered the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, whose genius is the dark-winged raven: The north-men have a moon-goblin called Glam, a personation of the delusive effects of its light, and from whom we get our word glamour. But before the advancing hosts of kerosene, gas, electricity and police, these devils of night must also beat a retreat. Sickness was originally explained as the departure of the ghost from the body and the entering in its place of an evil spirit. When the poor victim was completely " possessed," the devil within would throw him into spasms and contortions, make him foam at the mouth and writhe in agony. Often it could not be "cast out" and the man lived on, a demoniac. Elaborate systems of exorcism to free unfortunates of their spiritual load have been used in all times and countries. Dances, songs, talismans, magic knots, the number seven, holy bones and relics, the cross, abusive names of the demon, high-sounding names of an opposing god ; such are the spells employed for this purpose. The Singhalese alone count 240,000 charms against evil spirits. Great and powerful demons developed from these ideas, personifying dis- ease. Reeri is the Demon of Blood-poison in Ceylon. His form is that of a man with the face of a monkey ; he is fiery red, rides on a red bull and has eighteen disguises. Maha Sohon is the grave-yard devil ; he is 122 feet high, has four hands and three eyes, a red skin, the head of a bear, and is chief of 30,000 demons. This is not so wonderful, when it is known that on).y the priests and aristocrats were burned at death, the bodies of the people being thrown into an open hollow DEVILS. 19 among the hills and left to decompose or be devoured by dogs. Verily Sohon, in the shape of badly located and poorly-drained cemeteries, is at work nearer home than Ceylon. These people have also a demon of madness similar to the Greek Mania. Typhus fever gets its name from the devil Typhon, whose lolling tongue and empty stomach yearn for corpses. Martin Luther's ideas of disease are appropriate here. He says : " A Christian ought to know that he lives in the midst of devils, nearer to him than his coat or shirt. There are many of them in the woods, waters, deserts and in damp, muddy places, for the pur- pose of doing folk a mischief. They are also in the dense black clouds and send storms, hail, thunder and lightning, and poison the air with their infernal stench. The devil has more vessels and boxes full of poison, with which he kills people, than all the apothecaries in the world. We may be sure when any one dies of the pestilence, is drowned, or drops suddenly dead, the devil does it." Such are the interpretations of the past; how different from the views of the modern physician ! The change does not lie in the character of the diseases, but in the light science has thrown upon their causes. If you still find yourself attributing sickness to offended Deity, come out of the dark- ness of superstition into nineteenth century thought ! Cease sacrific- ing and study the laws of hygiene. Death came into the world by Satan, says Christian civilization ; amen, says the savage, and in every case sets out to find the guilty fiend and kill him. Many an innocent native is thus murdered. Elab- orate figures of Death are built, covered with skulls and serpents, dead- men's hearts and hands. In Ceylon it rides upon a white horse, and John of Patmos was kind enough to send the same notion down the current of European credulity ; "I looked and behold a Pale Horse, and his name that sat on him was Death." Everywhere death has been personified and raised into a demon to be feared. It is time we were getting over this dread. Disease brings pain, death relief. Let us guard against the former with all the care and knowledge of our times and look upon the latter as a blessing which comes to our aid, 20 DEVILS. when the sufferings become unbearable. We drape ourselves in black at funerals, the color of darkness and despair; this horrid custom should be sloughed off and brighter and more hopeful colors adopted. Originally demons were not distinguished from gods; good and evil actions were accredited to the same person. Elohim of the old Testa- ment is represented as the author of everything, and that there is still such a confusion in many minds is illustrated by the clergyman's ques- tion to a dying man ; " Are you not afraid to meet your God ? " The answer given showed his patient farther advanced in ethics ; " No," he replied, "it is the other party that worries me!" As civilization moved on, the principle of division of labor came into play even in these personifications, and, as man became able to make more acute distinctions between right and wrong, gods and demons moved apart in his mind and became antagonistic. In war a conquered people were made slaves and their gods Ab-gots, Ex-gods, or devils. Hence mythology is full of accounts of demons dethroned and expulsions from Heaven. Milton's Paradise Lost is a grand literary memorial of this principle. The words demon and devil, which we have been forced to use so often, are the same as the Sanscrit deva, " the shining one," and correspond to the Greek theos, Latin deus, Anglo-Saxon tiw, English "deity," gypsy " devel " — all names for God. This sepa- ration of the attributes of demons from those of gods slowly develop a set of personifications distinctly evil in their inclinations, devils indeed, who love the bad and delight in tormenting man. The great crowds of them formed into hierarchies and from their midst sprung leaders, king devils. From boiling springs, volcanoes, earthquakes and the supposed daily descent below the earth of the sun, their realms were located in the lower regions. Here reigned supreme the King of Superstitions. But a goodly knight comes forth to fight him. His name is Science ; his sword is comparative study, his helmet, cause and effect. " Attention must be given to things themselves," he says, "and not to the personifications which inaccurately represent them. The forces of nature are not demoniacal in their action ; there is no ANGELS. 2P fickleness of will-power. Good and bad are only relative terms. This act is better than that, if it causes more pleasure and less pain. Evil comes from being out of harmony with nature's ways. The powers of the universe are unfeeling but uniform. Be diligent, be thoughtful, be observing — notice how things move — get into line ; this is the only road to happiness." ANGELS. It is with peculiar feelings of humility that we recall those guileless days of childhood, when we stood up in a row and lifted our piping; voices in that pretty song : 11 1 want to be an angel And with the angels stand, A crown upon my forehead, A harp within my hand." What a sweet little wish ! How sad that in adult life it should evapo- rate ! That charming vision of an evanescent figure, floating in the air,, shining white, with long graceful v.ings and flowing robes, speeding hither and thither through space on deeds of mercy, surrounding the glorious throne on high and filling all Heaven with songs of praise, — oh, happy delusion of life's morning, why speed ye hence at mid-day? When our primitive forefathers had built for themselves a complete system of ghost personifications, when they had given every object of nature a human spirit, it followed, that these shadowy seconds should gradually gather into two classes, good and bad. All things which seemed adverse to man became demons and devils, and those which aided him in his struggles were personified as gods and angels. At first the two characteristics were confounded in the same personage,, for most things cause both pain and pleasure, but slowly they moved apart, became distinct and eventually antagonistic. Closely allied to the idea of a ghost-soul is that of a guardian angel. In times of great danger, when death or disaster threatens the savage, 2 2 ANGELS. if he escapes, he says, " my good spirit saved me." In his mind it is a special shadow companion watching over him and guarding him from the snares of the demons. The Watchandi of Australia secures this shade when he slays his first man. Taking up its abode near his liver it scratches or tickles him as danger approaches. It is known that in Tasmania the deceased father's second is considered as a guardian spirit to the son. The most important act of the North American Indian's religion is to secure his individual patron genius. The Esqui- maux sorcerer qualifies for his profession by getting the soul of a de- ceased parent for a shadow assistant. In Chili, when a native succeeds in any undertaking, he says: " You see I keep my guardian nymph still ! " And so it is throughout the barbaric world. In more advanced stages of civilization we find Socrates feeling a warning spirit within him dissuading from wrong, and Paul says regarding these angels : "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " He evidently restricts their services to a favored class of persons. In the Roman world each man had his " genius natalis" . attending him from birth to death, and its image had its proper place among the household gods. Upon birthdays it was decked with garlands, worshiped with song and dance and pro- pitiated with incense and libations of wine. In the tomb of the Egyp- tian along with his embalmed mummy, was buried an image of his guardian angel. A few quotations from the Bible will prove that the Hebrews held the same ideas. Jacob says: "The angel which re- deemed me from all evil, bless the lads." When Peter was released from prison and came to the house of Mary, Rhoda, hearing his voice, was so glad that she forgot to let him in but ran to the friends gathered for prayer and told the good news; but they replied, " It is his angel." Jesus says : " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones : for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father." Martin Luther thought that a prince must have a greater, stronger, wiser angel than a count, and a count than a com- mon man. Perhaps in most minds this idea is now no more than a ANGELS. 23 vague survival of olden times, but I fancy that many, when they say, "my conscience pricks me," are thinking of a ghostly being, who wishes them well and is warning them of danger. Such a question as the oft debated, "is conscience an infallible moral guide," would not arise if human judgment of right and wrong were the thing con- ceived. Parallel with the development of this idea of a guardian angel was that of an evil personal spirit, striving to decoy the man into danger. By his tent at night it said to Brutus : " I am thy evil genius ; we meet again at Philippi." Passing now from man to inanimate nature we are ushered into the company of the nymphs. These were the beautiful maiden ghosts of clouds, springs, brooks, grooves, rivers, glens, and grottoes. At first they were the kindly seconds of these benign objects of nature, which gave to man the welcome showers, shade, drink, food and protection ; but later they became detached from their substantial selves and were only thought to dwell thereabouts. Homer describes them as watch- ing over game, dancing with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, weav- ing purple garments aud watching tenderly over the fate of mortals. They were thought to stir the soul of man with feelings of awe, joy, and delight, whenever he contemplated nature. Nereides were the nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea, daughters of Nereus, the wise old man at its bottom. The Naiades were nymphs of fresh water rivers, lakes, brooks, or wells. Some of them restored the sick to health which looks reasonable, now that we understand the curative power of mineral springs. Around the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem gathered also the blind, halt and withered ; "for an angel went down at a cer- tain season and troubled the water, and whosoever then first stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." The nymphs of certain springs in Greece inspired their favored drinkers with powers of oratory, prophecy and poetry; and thus we glide easily into a conception of the Muses. Originally water nymphs they afterward become goddesses presiding over poetry, arts and 24 ANGELS. sciences. The earliest poets in their invocation of the muses actually believe they were supernaturally inspired, but in later times it became a mere formal introduction to their poems. Oh, cruel lapse of years, how thou dost destroy these dreams of mystic inspiration ! We are clinging now to such a phantasmagoria, tear it not from us ; we have cherished it so long ! The springs from which all waters flow are the clouds, and these in the child-man's simple mind were bird-like maidens swimming in the heavenly sea. Capable of transformation from maids to swans and back again, a host of pretty stories have grown up about them. A gallant hero comes across some beautiful girls in bathing, steals the feathery robes of one, whereupon she is forced to follow him up and become his wife. But afterwards she happens to find her bird-garb, puts it on again, and immediately flies away a swan. The light, float- ing, feathery attributes of angels no doubt are the result of personify- ing the clouds. This truth impresses itself most forcibly upon the mind, when, looking over an illustrated edition of Dante's Vision of Paradise or of Milton's Paradise Lost, we notice how naturally the crowds of angels fade away into fleecy clouds ; the artist can not avoid in his perspective the actual history of the thought growth. And now we have to consider the character of an angel as denoted by the meaning of the name, a divine messenger. This carries us for- ward inlhe development to the stage when man had conceived of gods dwelling in the sky, surrounded by heavenly hosts, and needing swift servants to speed on errands. As the conceptions of good and evil became more definitely defined, as angels and devils moved apart in character, their habitual dwelling places also departed, the one beneath the earth's surface to the dismal lower world, the other to the peaks of holy mountains and thence to the sky. On high Olympus, the Grecian Zeus looked down upon the affairs of man and ruled over the gods immortal. When he gazed upon the hosts fighting about Troy, it was from the summit of Mount Ida. Moses must go to the top of Mont Sinai to receive the law tablets from the hands of Jehovah. These ANGELS. 25 ideas do not seem so strange, when we remember, that in those days the firmament was thought to be solid and resting for support upon these mountain pillars. Angels were the messengers who sped upon the errands of Odin, Zeus, Amun-Ra, or Jehovah. These were as often male as female and among them may be found those who have become distinguished in their office. Odin had his crowds of Valkyrs, beautiful maidens, who hovered over the battle fields of the Teutons to select the worthy dead who should be admitted to Walhalla. In the Sanscrit poem, Mahabharata, the Iliad of India, is this consolation addressed to warriors : " A hero slain is not to be lamented, for he is exalted in heaven. Thousands of beautiful nymphs (apsaras) run quickly up, saying to him, " be my husband, be my husband." Maho- met cheered the hearts of his faithful with the same encouraging prospect. Zeus had his winged Hermes, born in a cave of Mount Cyllene, an undoubted personification of the wind. He it was who, during his earthly life, invented the lyre. At the entrance of his native cavern he found a tortoise shell and, stretching three mystic strings across its mouth, invoked celestial music. How clearly is seen the child- man explaining those zephyr tones, which play within the chambers of a cave or shell, and the solution is not wider of the truth than that now so often heard, that the roaring in a shell is the echo of the ocean surf. Among the duties of Hermes was that of accompanying as a kindly friend the shades of the dead in their journey through^the lower world. He also carries dreams from Zeus to man and the blessing of refreshing sleep. He was the herald, charioteer and cup-bearer of the Olympian God. Skilled in speech, graceful of action, swift as the wind, shrewd and cunning, he was the ideal angel of the Greek. Corresponding to Hermes in the Greek pantheon is Gabriel in the Hebrew. Daniel was favored with his presence to explain prophetic visions and in one case he was announced by name : " And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel make this man to understand the vision." But the context is careful 2 ANGELS. enough to explain : " Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face towards the ground." Again Daniel says : While I was speaking in prayer the man Gabriel, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation." To Zacharias the angel said : "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings." Luke also tells us that Gabriel appeared to Mary and an- nounced the birth of Jesus. Matthew speaking of this last appear- ance calls him " the angel of the Lord," and under this title he has to do with the Hebrew peoples fully as much as Hermes with the Greeks. Evidently the two are homologous conceptions. Michael was another principal angel in the Hebrew mind. His special province was to fight the battles of Israel against Satan. Saint Jude says, that Michael the Archangel, when contending with the Devil and disputing about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, "the Lord rebuke thee." Gabriel tells Daniel that when the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood him one and twenty days, lo, Michael came to help him. And John of Patmos writes: "And there was a war in Heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon." It has often been claimed that the Greeks differed from the Hebrews in picturing their gods as contending with each other ; but that sweet harmony in the Hebrew Heaven so often extolled from the pulpit is plainly more of a desire than a fact. When Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, we are told, that two Cherubims and a flaming sword, that turned every way, were placed at the east end to keep the way of the tree of life. Two figures of these beings were placed upon the mercy seat of the ark and a pair of colossal size overshadowed it in Solomon's Temple with the canopy of their extended wings. Cherubs were carved or wrought everywhere on the doors, walls, curtains, and furniture of the temple — a sort of divine heraldry. Their shape is illy defined in the Bible, except as to the matter of wings, and a reading of the various passages relating to ANGELS. 27 them leaves an impression of a composite creature made up of man, lion, ox and eagle. Parallel conceptions are found in the religious thought of Assyria, Egypt and Persia, and are left in their monuments as the sphinx, winged bulls, winged lions, and the like. To the modern mind the word cherub suggest? a pretty little fat baby ; Raph- ael and the other painters have driven the repulsive animal character- istics all away and left us a sweet, chubby infant, whom everybody longs to kiss. The wings are there yet, but not half big enough for flight. Another interesting class of angels were the Seraphs. Isaiah says regarding them : "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim ; each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly. ' ' Thus they were thought to stand and burn with adoration and love. Although the conception of the beings has faded away, the word seraphic has become a part of the English language and will ever express intensity and perfection. Charis, the wife of Hephaestus, was the Greek personification of grace and beauty. In early time there came to be many such maidens, called Charites, by the Romans Gratiae. One of those mystic numbers that always hover about mythology has asserted its power in this case and there are left of the bevy the Three Graces. They were beautiful girls in the bloom of youth, who gave festive joy and enhanced the pleasures of life by refinement and gentleness. They were in the ser- vice of the gods and hence were actual angels. Tfiey moderated the exciting influence of wine and accompanied Eros to cool somewhat the heat of love. Poetry especially was in their favor and they lived in friendly companionship with the Muses on Mount Olympus. The one inspired the poets, the other applied the poems to the embellishment of life and to the festivals of the immortals. So we have briefly followed man in his personification of the benefi- cent forces of nature as various sorts of angels. We have only taken a peep into the mind creations of those peoples most influencing our 2 8 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. civilization, and what an interesting crowd of beings have we dis- covered ! Angels, genii, nymphs, muses, graces, valkyrs, cherubs, seraphs, Hermes, Gabriel, Michael, Zeus, Odin, Jehovah— how differ- ent all these from the explanations of phenomena according to cold laws of cause and effeet, which have supplanted them in the cultured mind of the nineteenth century. We are losing the poetry of life, say you, with this study of mathematics and physics. Ah, no ; so long as these personifications are believed in, they are actual prose facts ; they become poetry, when we begin to see that they are only symbols of actuality, figures of thought A more perfect illustration cannot be ibund than that picture in Dante's Purgatory : " Along the side, where barrier none arose Around the little vale, a serpent lay, Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food, Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake Came on, reverting oft his lifted head ; And as a beast that smooths its polish'd coat, Licking his back. I saw not nor can tell, How these celestial falcons from their seat Moved, but in motion each one well descried. Hearing the air cut by their verdant plumes, The serpent fled ; and to their stations, back The angels up return'd with equal flight." SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. It is perfectly natural that children should be delighted with the stories of the Old Testament. They picture the thought of the Hebrew people in their childhood period of civilization. The mental development of every individual is a miniature of the evolution of civilization, and as he advances in age he sympathizes, from time to time, with the thought of the historic period to which he corresponds. Some never outgrow their swaddling-clout, marked cases of checked development ; some come along as far as the middle ages ; some cease their progress at the eighteenth century ; and a few really become nineteenth century- adults. SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 29 Three attitudes are usually assumed toward the story of Samson. The first is that of the confiding, obedient, easy going mind, which does not trouble itself to closely examine the ideas involved in a state- ment, to see if they are conceivable, but assents from habit to propo- sitions presented by authority. To such, at least in word, Samson is a real personage and the Bible account of him accurate history. The second attitude is that of the careless, common-sense, skeptical man, who does not propose to be "gulled" by anybody or any book. He disposes of the matter with one fell swoop, as a bundle of lies. The third is that of the man of science, who finds something worthy of study in all phenomena of nature, and none more absorbing in interest than those closely relating to man. He approaches such a problem from every possible standpoint, seeking the light which shall most clearly illumine the subject. If he is really imbued with the scientific spirit, he has no previous notions, which he will not gladly throw aside for what seem truer. He must be independent in thought— not bound by the tenets of any society or organization. His livelihood must not in any way depend upon his assertions of opinion. Socially he should be free from those attachments, which restrain the action of the intel- lect, warping judgment through feeling. Plainly there are very few persons properly circumstanced to think upon the merits of a problem, and fewer still who dare state their deepest convictions, pure and simple. When the study of language was confined to Latin, Greek and He- brew, very little was done in Comparative Philology. But when the English government opened to the world the treasures of India, the Aryan group of languages came to light. The study rapidly spread to other families, and following closely upon the heels of Comparative Philology came Comparative Mythology. The fairy tales, the nursery rhymes, the legends, the wise sayings, the epic poems, the supersti- tions, the religions of the world, were collected and placed side by side. A man who has always lived in one town is not very well qualified to judge of its character ; so a person, who has never pierced the cloud of 30 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. mythology in which he was born, is not likely to appreciate the mental atmosphere he breathes. It is only by calm comparison that a well balanced conception of any subject can be formed. First of all, we must fully grasp the thought that man has developed slowly from a state of mental childnood. If we would catch the spirit of the myth-building age, we must cast away all our abstract concep- tions, such as gravity, heat, light, sound, electricity, force — forget all our laws of nature and philosophical explanations of things. These are the growths of centuries — primitive man knew nothing of them. How did he explain the phenomena round about him ? Think for a moment what an explanation is ; simply realizing that something new and strange is like something old and familiar. Primi- tive man was familiar with his own feelings ; he knew little else. So he explained everythiug in nature by projecting himself mentally upon it — by personification. The stones, the trees, the hills, the earth, the clouds, the moon, the sun — all felt and thought. This was real to him, not figurative. He was surrounded by an infinite multitude of manlike beings, and all his talk would be in such language. Hence come the genders of inanimate nouns, which annoy the student of Latin, Ger- man and other grammars. If a single man related a story of an isolated event to one of his fellows, it would be soon' lost ; but personations of phenomena, which repeat themselves daily or yearly, would come down through time, subjected to the modifications incident to devel- oping man. Chief among these would be the ones connected with the sun ; and such an all powerful heavenly body as this could but be represented as a God. When his Father has gone to rest, Sun God is born and goes forth to fight with Storm and Darkness and make Earth fruitful. He has many amorous frolics with the Dawn Maidens and many midnight escapades with the Evening Twilight Goddesses. He is mighty in his own strength and slays his enemies. After victory he retreats and sinks to rest or dies. Something like this would be the chief elements in the primitive conception of a solar year. SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 3 1 In the midst of this worship of nature was also developing ancestor worship. The superstitious awe paid to the Father of the family, and later to the Patriarch of the tribe, did not cease at death, but only in- tensified. His double, his ghost, was believed to accompany the tribe in its wanderings, to fight with them and bless with victory. The names of these ancestors had been taken 'during their lifetime from things which they seemed to resemble in character. This is the wide- spread Totem system, cropping out all over the world ; Great Bear, Red Cloud, Rising Sun, may serve as illustrations. Stories of the deeds of father gods would be told from generation to generation, and is it strange that they should get confused with the nature personifica- tions, and the exploits of the heavenly bodies become attached to the legendary heroes of the nation ? And it is but a step in thought, though it took ages in fact, for the conceptions to be withdrawn from their sources in nature and applied directly and only to the men. No longer do the relaters think of the sun, but Hercules, Sigfried, Indra and Samson are real persons. Thus came down to us a mass of semi- historic, semi-mythic wonder-tales, of beings half men, half god, per- forming marvelous feats and endowed with superhuman powers — the delight of children, the food of the credulous, the lies of the skeptic, the field of study for the scholar. A myth, then, may be defined as an explanation by primitive man of natural phenomena, through personification, his only means, which, as it was repeated from age to age, lost its original application, because of the developing mental powers of man, and from confusion of names, and at last became attached to heroic or historic persons. Now why is it evident that Sampson is a Sun God and the Bible account of him a genuine myth ? His name, according to the best etymologists, is most clearly derived from the Hebrew word shemesh, meaning sun. "As from dag, fish, Dagon, the name of the Fish God of the Philistines is formed, so from shemesh, sun, we have Shims-on, the Sun God." 32 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. He stands out distinct in character from the other Judges of Israel ; Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah fought at the head of armies or of small picked forces, but Samson goes forth alone and slays hundreds and thousands unarmed. The others, though they may be represented as receiving Divine apparitions, impelling them to action, still use human means to bring about their ends ; Samson acts with supernatural force and is a miracle throughout. But his mythic character will appear more vividly as we trace the story, step by step, and notice its correspondence to the phenomena of the sun. He is the son of Manoah, a word meaning "rest," a representation, like the more famous Noah, of the winter sun. After the labors of summer, primitive man conceived the sun to be tired and to have gone southward to sleep — a conception much like the resting of the Creator on the seventh day. The angel who predicts his birth disappears in the fire of the altar, which introduces the series of fiery incidents carrying a strong taint of solar origin. Like all Sun Gods, he must have his frequent love affairs, and the first one is with a daughter of the enemy, whom he weds. This is the marriage of the sun with the moon, daughter of night, and must end in a separation, for the two luminaries do not keep company long. On his first journey down to woo his captivator, he kills a lion, an emblem occasionally of sterility ; it is his first triumph — the youthful sun destroying the winter's dearth and warming it into fruitfulness. On his way to the marriage he sees bees in the carcass, which suggest a wedding riddle and he proposes it under a wager: "Out of the Eater came forth Meat and out of the Strong came forth Sweetness." This riddle was probably a part of the Hebrew folk-lore and the author of Judges weaves the popular solution of his times into the story. But it is very unsatisfactory, for we know that bees would not make honey in decaying flesh ; it would spoil and the whole swarm be starved out. A better explanation was close at hand but, of course, could not be seen in those days : "Out of the Eater (burner) came forth Meat (fertility) and out of the Strong (Sun) SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 33 came forth Sweetness (fruitfulness). His bride weeps before him seven days, longing with female curiosity for the cue to the mystery, and when she finds it, straightway goes and tells it to the thirty companions of Samson. What could more plainly indicate the solar character of our hero than the recurrence of those mystic numbers, seven and thirty, the days of the week and of the month ? Here we deviate a little from the order of the narrative to call attention to the deception practiced upon Delilah. When she teases for the secret of Samson's strength, he fools her with the seven withes, the seven cords, and \\\s seven lccks of hair. The amount of the bet was thirty sheets and thirty changes of garment. While he is killing thirty Philistines to get booty sufficient to pay the stakes, his wife, supposed by her father to be deserted, is given to one whom Samson "had used as a friend." Here is the cruel separa- tion which we predicted. In the month called Jarad or Irad, the month of the "Descent of Fire," corresponding to our August, Samson lets loose his three hundred foxes, tied tail to tail with burning fagots between, and sets fire to the wheat of the Philistines. This is so plainly an action of the sun, that it is hardly necessary to say that the fox was an animal symbolic of solar heat, because of his color and long-haired tail ; and that at the festival of Ceres at Rome, a Pagan festival, a fox-hunt through the circus was held, in which burning torches were tied to the foxes tails, a reminder of the robigo or "red fox," a sun-blight of their fields. Then the Philistines burn his wife and father-in-law and in revenge Samson inflicts a great defeat upon them. Now comes the cowardly flight and hiding in the rock Etam, from which retreat he allows his countrymen to take him bound into the hands of the enemy. We are getting along toward autumn, in this legend of the year, and signs of weakness begin to appear — the Sun is retreating toward the South. But when he comes among the Philistines his bands "become as flax that was burned with fire" and