happily, on a fine summer's day in a lovely landscape.

These two phrases introduce us to some of the world's most interesting mythology, and we will explore this delightful store-house with the Bible as our guide. Meanwhile I would like to point out that this single verse of Genesis contains fragments of two myths as far asunder as night is from day-one, the earlier, although stated second, is a world-wide tale, entirely beautiful, very ancient and redolent of motherly love; while the other belongs to a later epoch of a source quite local, Accadia or Babylonia, and of a war-like and bloodthirsty nature, and yet they are presented to us in one verse, in one breath so to speak, as though contemporary, yet truly divided by a profound gulf both in time and in sentiment.

"The Spirit of God moved upon the face of "the waters" contains for its size more errors of translation or interpretation than any other phrase in the Bible.

In the first place the original word does not signify, in this case, the Spirit of God. The word used is the feminine word Ruach or Rkh, which is our word Ark, as Noah's Ark, and it is used in all mythology as a symbol for the Creative Mother of all. She is the Queen

of Heaven, in whom all the gods dwelt. All the gods dwelt in Arks in the sense that they were the sons of their mother. All life came out of an Ark, and even demi-gods or heroes like Moses came out of an Ark.

The Roman Church calls Mary the "Habita"tion of God," the " Awful Dwelling-place," the "Tabernacle of God," and all Queens of heaven were Arks or "Ruachs," and the Ruach of Genesis was the universal womb, Om, Ooma, or Uma, of the Hindus, from which emerges all life. She is symbolically rendered by the group of symbols in Fig. 1, the Arc, arch, or D'Om, dome, or rounded belly, then by the Dove, then by the crescent moon or vase or ark on the waters, and lastly by water itself. Symbolism is founded on purely natural facts, and as the young were known to issue out of water in actual birth, the ancient held that "all life comes out of water." So water is the female Element, and the female was the earliest form of Creator.

In India-and India is the Mother of Religion-it is held that Ruach or Uma, the universal mother, is greater than God, because she existed before him, and because she "sets "him into action," and because "Creation "cannot be accomplished without her;" and

Fig. 1.

so Ruach in Genesis is only the Spirit of God, in so far as she is the spirit which urges him to action.

Here we see the early beginnings of the idea of chivalry recognising that it is man's love of woman which urges him to great actions.

Ruach came also to mean Breath or Spirit, and the Ancients gave the dominion of Air, Breath, or Spirit to Semiramis, one of the earliest Queens of heaven, and to all subsequent Queens of heaven, Cybele, Venus, Istar, Astarte, Isis, Terra, who were all the same, Queens of Heaven, mothers of divine love or life, or creators of life, and they held that the Queen of heaven breathed the "soul" or "breath of life" into the babe.

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Proclus tells us that Juno, Queen of heaven, begat the souls of infants just as their mothers created their bodies, and Joannes Clericus tells us "As mother of the gods she was worshipped ' by the Persians, Syrians, and all the Kings of Europe and Asia with the most profound religious veneration." The second error of translation is the word "moved." The Hebrew word does not mean moved," but "brooded," as a hen broods over her eggs or chickens; or a mother over her babe in her lap. The brooding of any bird is often accompanied by a fluttering motion, well understood, and often applied to women when excited over any pleasurable thing. They are said in popular novels to "flutter " over a pearl necklace, or over a new baby, and in fact in early times the mother of the gods, the Queen of heaven, the Womb of Creation, such as Rhea, Venus, or Astarte, were called "Flutterers," the meaning of the word translated as "moving " in Genesis. We shall see another word mistranslated, " moved " in the account of creation given in Job. (See p. 166.) Very few of the myths adopted by the Hebrews from more learned nations were correctly handed down.

They were either totally changed by intro

ducing local colouring, or by introducing names foreign to the tale, in order to exalt or debase the name, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel. In some they are told quite correctly, as we shall see in the case of the tabernacle-treated in another volumebut suddenly cut short, and the end entirely suppressed by some later writer who felt that the practice described was out of date, so that the reader may never know what was meant, or enacted by the profuse detail in describing rules, constructions, or vestments. Here we have an interesting case of such suppression. What was Ruach doing brooding on the waters? In all ancient cosmogonies, which begin with a Queen of heaven, the statement is : Ruach, the universal mother, brooded upon the waters (or fertile abyss), and brought forth life." The whole purpose of the brooding is left out in Genesis, as the Hebrews despised the female and would only recognise a male creation. The most fundamental tradition of creation of life, one held by all nations, is that life comes out of the waters, has for its basis the actual facts of the conditions under which a child is born from its mother.

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The end of the second verse and the be