influences of the Pleiades in spring, where Arcturus and his sons needed no guide, where the pure silvery huntress with her bow and the morning stars sang together for joy in the clear mountain air, which seemed to bring them so near to their God.

And here some priest conceived for them the only great miracle play, which has come down to us from antiquity, enacting the symbolical dream of the travail of the " Great Mother," in their humble tabernacle.

But, like all mountain people, their hearts ever turned towards the great questions of life and death-" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" "Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?"-the everpresent struggle between good and evil, and the wonderment raised in all shepherd races by the glories of the night sky with its heroes and celestial patriarchs; their poetical genius culminating in that wonder and delight of all peoples, that glorious poem of Arabic wisdom and virile philosophy, where the "Ancient of Days answered Job out of the whirlwind."

FINIS

PART I

THE PASSOVER

The joyous quickening of life's energies by the return of the sun in Spring has been celebrated in all climes north of the equator by love festivals, Carnivals, Bacchanalia, Floralia, or Liberalia-names indicating their true nature flesh-eating, wine-drinking, flower-decorated feasts, where complete liberty was enjoyed, and all bonds were loosed. Even in these cold Northern countries the race has responded to that annual awakening, when the return of the unconquered sun renews within mankind that glowing wonder of creation, and joy of reproduction, which stirs all animated nature; and at one time our May was really the Merry month, or the Mary month, month of Maya or Mary or Venus, with its merry dance of maidens round the male pala or pole. Under the "sweet in

fluence of the Pleiades " (home of Venus), the more emotional races nearer to the equator have responded to the visible joy of the "great mother" when she awakens in Spring by rejoicing with her in unrestrained indulgence of nature's great process; and so the "Bridegroom" idea, taught by the marriage of the Sun and Earth, reigned supreme at these great feasts. In Southern climes where clothing was unknown, and therefore conventional morality and that which clothing brings, sexual shame, scarcely existed, the returning sun, stirring with his generous beams the palpitating fibre of the human frame, awakened glowing dreams of passion which could brook no restraint, and scorned all danger, as "perfect love casteth out fear."

As Nature's fundamental activity is reproduction, there exists in the innermost fibre of every human being the insistent urgence towards the fulfilment of Nature's great behest, but as man is gregarious, there came to be created very early in his history some formal regulation of the wayward tendencies which are the very essence of Nature's law, and marriage laws were evolved. It was towards a revolt against this restraint that man broke out into his great "love feasts," or Hags.

But even these came to have some recognised governance or regulation, as was inevitable in a race of reasoning animals of gregarious tendencies, so these annual outbreaks became recognised and legalised as annual feasts, and latterly the priests wrote their sacred books making the tribal god actually command such feasts to be held. Such, we shall see, was the Feast of Tabernacles or succoth benoth-" benoth Hebrew being capable of being pronounced "Venus" before pointing was introduced by the Masoretes. These Succoth Benoth were tents of Venus, and this feast was several times commanded by Jehovah or IhOh, a name which I have shown in my Gods of the Hebrew Bible should be spelt Iové, pronounced Yovey.

in

The Hebrews, whose tribal history and mythology are the bases of the Christian religion, were a small Arabian tribe which had been enslaved by the Egyptians, and employed in some of the great public works which were constantly in progress in Egypt.

The condition of these Hebrews was represented to be pitiable in the extreme, and they finally became so physically degraded, possibly by starvation and over-work, that their people

were the focus from which spread loathesome diseases, as is shown by their own writings.

Early historians tell us that the spread of leprosy and other contagious and sexual diseases had become so alarming in Egypt that the Oracle of the god Amen was consulted, and this Oracle declared that the Hebrew slaves were the direct cause of these diseases, which were spreading all over the country. So the Hebrew slaves were expelled.

The historians who tell us this are all serious men, such as Justin in his Historium Judæorum, Manetho in his great History of Egypt, Tacitus, the Roman historian, who told us so much about Germany and Britain, Lysimachus and Diodorus Siculus; so the fact seems to have been very widely known to be so widely recorded.

The Hebrew account is exactly the contrary. The scriptural account says they were overworked by hard taskmasters, which was probably true, and asked for time to make a three days 'journey into the desert to hold a feast, dance, or "hag," unto " Iové of the Ale-im," "lest he fall upon us with the pestilence." So pestilence was not unknown to them. The Pharoah refused, and then came the miraculous plagues of frogs, lice, flies, blood, locusts,