MITHRA AND AHRIMANES. 85 matter; the one is the very brighter, as the other is the very blacker. Thus, the worshipers of the Sun, or Light, or Fire, whether in the Old or the New Worlds, worshiped not Sun, or Light, or Fire,-otherwise they would have worshiped the Devil, he being all conceivable Light; but rather they adored the Unknown Great God, in the last image that was possible to man of any thing-the Fire. And they chose that as His shadow, as the very opposite of that which He really was: honouring the Master through His Servant; bowing before the manifestation, Eldest of Time, for the Timeless; paying homage to the spirit of the Devil-World, or rather to Beginning and End, on which was the foot of the ALL, that the ALL, or the LAST, might be worshiped; propitiating the Evil Principle in its finite shows, because (as by that alone a world could be made, whose making is alone Comparison) it was permitted as a means of God, and therefore the operation of God Downwards, as part of Him, though Upwards dissipating as before Him, before HIM in whose presence Evil, or Comparison, or Difference, or Time, or Space, or any thing, should be Impossible: real God being not to be thought upon. But it was not only in the quickening Spirit of Divinity that these things could be seen. Otherwise than in faith, we can hope that they shall now-in our weak attempts to explain them-be gathered as not contradictory, and merely intellectual, and seen as vital and absolute. They need the elevation of the mind in the sense of "inspiration," and not the quickening and the sharpening of the Intellect, as seeking wings-devil-pinions-wherewith to sail into the region only of its own laws, where, of course, it will not find God. Then step in the mathematics, then the senses, then the reason, then the very perfection of matter-work, or this world's work, sets in,-engines of which the Satanic Powers -- shall realise the work. The Evil Spirit conjures, as even by holy command, the translucent sky. The Archangelic, clear, child-like rendering-up in intuitive belief,-intense in its own sun,-is FAITH. Lucifer fills the scope of belief with imitative, dazzling clouds, and built splendours. With these temptations it is sought to dissuade, sought to rival, sought to put out Saints' sight-sought even to surpass in seeming a farther and truer, because a more solid and a more sensible, glory. The apostate, real-born Lucifer is so named as the intensest Spirit of Light, because he is of the things that perish, and of the things that to Mind-because they are all of Matter-have the most of glory! Thus is one of the names of the Devil, the very eldest-born and brightest Star of Light, that of the very morning and beginning of all things -the clearest, brightest, purest, as being soul-like, of Nature; but only of Nature. Real Law, or Nature, is the Devil; real Reason is the Devil. Now we shall find, with a little patience, that this transcendental, beyond-limit-or-knowledge ancient belief of the Fire-God is to be laid hand upon-as, in a manner, we shall say in all the stories and theologies of the ancient world-in all the countries (and they, indeed, are all) where belief has grown,-yea, as a thing with the trees. and plants, as out of the very ground,-in all the continents-and in both worlds. And out of this great fact of its universal dissipation, as a matter of history the most innate and coexistent, shall we not assume this fire-doctrine as being of truth ?-as a thing really, fundamentally, and vitally true? As in the East, so in the West; as in the old time, so in the new; as in the preadamite and postdiluvian worlds, so in the modern and latter-day world; surviving through the ages, buried in the foundations of empires, locked in the rocks, hoarded in legends, main THE FIRE-RELIGION UNIVERSAL. 87 tained in monuments, preserved in beliefs, suggested in traditions, borne amidst the roads of the multitude in emblems, gathered up-as the recurring, unremarked, supernaturally coruscant, and yet secret, evading, encrusted, and dishonoured jewel-in rites, spoken (to those capable of the comprehension) in the field of hieroglyphics, dimly glowing up to a fitful suspicion of it in the sacred rites of all peoples, figured forth in the religions, symbolised in a hundred ways; attested, prenoted, bodied forth in occult body, as far as body can;-in fine, in multitudinous fashions and forms forcibly soliciting the sharpness of sight directed to its discovery, and spelt over a floor as underplacing all things, we recognise, we espy, we descry, and we may, lastly, ADMIT the mysterious sacredness of Fire. For why should we not admit it? Of course, it will not for a moment be supposed that we mean any thing like—or in its nature similar to-ordinary fire. We hope that no one will be so absurd as to suppose that this in any manner could be the mysterious and sacred element for which we are contesting. Where we are seeking to transcend, this would be simply sinking back into vulgar reason. While we are seeking to convict and dethrone this world's reason as the real devil, this would be distinctly deifying common sense. Of common sense, except for common-sense objects, we make no account. We have rather in awed contemplation the divine, ineffable, transcendental SPIRIT-the Immortal Fervour-into which the whole World evolves. We have the mystery of the Holy Spirit in view, called by its many names. It is because theologies will contest concerning divers names of the same thing, that we therefore seek, in transcending, but to identify. It is because men will dispute about forms, that we seek philosophically to show that all forms are impossible, that, when we take the human reason into account, all forms of belief are alike. Reason has been the great enemy of religion. Let us see if this world's reason cannot be mastered. We are now about-in a new light-to treat of facts, and of various historical monuments. They all bear reference to this universal story of the mystic Fire. We claim to be the first to point out how strikinglyand yet how, at the same time, without any suspicion of itthese emblems and remains, in so many curious and unintelligible forms, of the magic religion are found in the Christian churches. From the Vaults of the Temple of Solomon, at Jerusalem. CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH. MONUMENTS RAISED TO FIRE-WORSHIP IN ALL COUNTRIES. E think that we shall be able fully, in our succeeding chapters, to place beyond contradiction an extraordinary discovery. It is, that the whole round of disputed emblems which so puzzle antiquaries, and which are found in all countries, point to the belief in Fire as the First Principle. We seek to show that the FireWorship was the very earliest, from the immemorial times, —that it was the foundation religion,—that the attestation to it is preserved in monuments scattered all over the globe, that the rites and usages of all creeds, down even to our own day, and in every-day use about us, bear reference to it,-that problems and puzzles in religion, which cannot be otherwise explained, stand clear and evident when regarded in this new light,-that in all the Christian varieties of belief-as truly as in Bhuddism, in Mohammedanism, in Heathenism of all kinds, whether eastern, or western, or northern, or southern-this "Mystery of Fire" stands ever general, recurring, and conspicuous, and that in being so, beyond all measure, old, and so, beyond all modern or any idea of it, general,—as universal, in fact, as man himself, and the thoughts of man,—and as being that |