All the northern nations, known under the general name of Celtic, worshipped fire, water, air, the earth, the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the vault of the heavens, the trees, the rivers, the fountains, &c. Julius Cæsar, the vanquisher of the Gauls, assures us, that the ancient Germans adored nought, save the visible cause, and its visible agents, worshipping nothing more than the gods they saw, and by which they were influenced, the Sun, the Moon, fire or Vulcan, and the earth under the name of Herta.

The celebrated Charlemagne, in his "Capitulaires," proscribed and forbid, under pain of the severest penalties, the ancient usage of placing lighted candles by the sides of trees and fountains, with a view to render them a superstitious worship. Canute, the great Danish conqueror of the Saxons, prohibited the worship that the people of this country then offered up to the Sun, to the Moon, to fire, to running waters, to fountains, forests, &c. We read that the Franks, who passed from Italy under the command of Theudibert, immolated the wives and children of the Goths, and offered them up as a sacrifice to the river of the Po, as the first fruits of the The Germans also had a custom of immolating horses to the rivers, nay, it was a common practice with the people of many ancient nations, to precipitate animals into the waters, as an offering to the deities they supposed to preside over them.

war.

From what has been already written, the careful reader will gather the fact, that we cannot point to a single people of the ancient world, among whom was not formerly established the worship of Nature and its principal agents; and in order to complete this abridged history of ancient worship, we will pass to America, and shew that all was there new, save the religion; for the religion of the Aborigines of America, like the religions of all other nations, was natural religion. Yes, in America, all presents to the traveller from the old continent, a new scene, as well in the order physical as the order political or moral. All there is indeed new,-quadrupeds, plants, trees, fruits, reptiles, birds, manners, usages, laws, government,-all, save religion, which alone harmonizes with that of the ancient world. On both continents temples were raised to the Sun, the Moon, the sky, the stars, the earth, and the elements, which were adored as living, moving intelligences.

The Incas of Peru called themselves children of the Sun; they raised magnificent temples and consecrated them to that star, and

fêtes were instituted to its honour. In Peru, the Sun was regarded, as well as in Ethiopia, India, Egypt, and Phenecia, as the great and eternal source of the best gifts of Nature. The Moon was likewise an object of adoration with the simple Peruvians, and was called the mother of all sublunary things. She was honoured both as the wife and mother of the Sun. Venus, the most brilliant planet, after the Sun, had also her altars and her worshippers, as well as the meteors, the lightning, the thunder, and, above all, the brilliant Iris, or rainbow; and, singularly enough, in Peru, virgins were charged, as the vestals at Persia and Rome, with the sacred and perpetual fire.

The same worship was established at Mexico, with a pomp and magnificence that might be expected from a comparatively instructed people. The Mexicans adored the sky, to which they gave the name of Creator, or Admirable; and we are told that there was not a single known part of nature that had not its worshippers and adorers.

The inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama, and of all that part of America called Terra Firma, believed that there was one god in the sky, and that god was the Sun, husband of the Moon ; they adored these two stars as the two supreme causes which regulated the world. It was the same with the people of Brazil, with the Caribs, the people of the Floridas, the Indians on the side of Cumana, the savages of Virginia, of the Canadas, and of Hudson's Bay.

The savages of North America make no treaty without calling the Sun to witness, as a pledge of their faith, as we have seen done by Agamemnon, in Homer; the same is also related by Polybius of the Carthagenians. When the North American Indians smoke with their enemies, the Calumet, or Pipe of Peace, they push its smoke towards the Sun. According to the ancient traditions of these Indians, it was to a certain people called the Pani's, that the god Sun had given the Calumet.

It would be easy to extend our researches in this direction, but enough has been said to prove that the worship of Nature should be regarded as the primitive and universal religion of the two worlds. To which proofs, drawn from the history of the people of the two continents, others might be added, did space permit, derived from their political and religious monuments, of the divisions

and distributions of the sacred and social orders, of their fêtes, of their hymns, of their religious chants, and from the opinions of their philosophers. Nor will the reflecting mind fail to be struck with the fact, that it must necessarily have been that when men ceased, from causes various, and to us unknown, to assemble upon the tops of mountains, there to contemplate the wonderful machinery of the heavens, the Sun, the Moon, and the stars,-their first divinities, and offered up their incense within the precincts of their own narrow temples, that they wished to worship there the images or symbols of their gods, and that wonderful ensemble called the Universe. Figuratively it may be said, that the starry heavens descended upon the soils of Egypt and Greece, there to take a body and a form in the images of the gods, whether living or dead. We may likewise remark, that all the ancient fêtes were connected with the grand epochs of nature, and to the celestial system. Everywhere we find the solstitial and equinoxial fêtes,-above all do we find that of the winter solstice, when the Sun seems to augment its force, and retake its route towards our climate; also that of the equinox of spring, for it is then we have in our hemisphere the long days, and all nature seems laughing and glad, as though rejoicing in the presence of the Sun, which, by its active and beneficent heat, sets in motion the springs of vegetation, developes all the germs enclosed in the chilled earth, and ripens our fruits.

We now take leave of this part of our subject, as every careful reader who has attentively considered our former Letters, will agree that they fully prove that personification was not merely the basis of poetry in the ancient as in the modern world, but likewise the basis of ancient as well as modern religions. It has been shewn that the Indians, the Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and last, though not least, the Christians, are worshippers of the Sun under the form of a man. Christian priests, while denouncing the worship of Atys, Adonis, Bacchus, Mithra, and Hercules, as the worship of idols, have been too ignorant of their own religion, and the source from whence it was derived, to know that the god Chrishna, the black god of India and Ethiopia, was a mere personification of light; that Chrishna was among those nations worshipped as the light which enlightens every man coming into the world,-precisely as Christ is worshipped as the light

which enlighteneth every man coming into the world; that the Sun, the great fountain of light, was personified by Chrishna in the countries before mentioned, who was said to have been born of a virgin, differing only from the orthodox Virgin Mary, in being black; because, as before noted, when blacks personify, they personify in their own manner,-there being no standard of excellence or beauty, but each nation or people setting up one of their own, purely arbitrary, delightful enough to themselves-but often ugly and detestable to others. Had all men been black, we should undoubtedly have heard of nought but sooty gods, angels, and superior intelligences; for, as observed by a witty philosopher," If God has made men after his own image, men have not failed to return the compliment, and made God, or gods, after their own image." The Chrishna of India was the same as the Hercules of Egypt and -Phenecia, the Mithra of Persia, the Bacchus of Greece, and the Christ of Europe, that is, neither more nor less than a personified idea of the strength, virtue, and grandeur of the glorious Star of Day; in short, as we asserted in our second Letter, a Mythos! -Proofs of this will thicken upon us at every step, and in our next we shall pluck another feather from the wing of the orthodox Christian, by shewing that the supposed birth of Christ on Christmas day, was the birth of the Sun, or the winter solstice. It will also be made manifest, not merely that the festival of Christmas had its origin in the heavenly appearances, but in fact, that all religious worship, ceremonies, fêtes, and festivals, bore a relation to heavenly phenomena, and the effects such phenomena produced on the destinies of men.

This was the origin of the fêtes and rejoicings at Christmas, or the solstice of winter and Easter, or the equinox of spring, by the worshippers of Christ, or the Sun; but though many rejoice-few inquire. The true cause of such fêtes and festivals, was unknown, except to the instructed. The ancient priests were well informed respecting these things, but modern priests, bewildered by dogmas, know nothing of their origin. May-day sports, as well as those of Christmas and Easter, were first enjoyed in ancient times, and were always meant to celebrate certain natural events.

London: H. Hetherington; A. Heywood Manchester; and all Booksellers. J. Taylor, Printer, 29, Smallbrook Street, Birmingham.

EXISTENCE OF CHRIST

AS A HUMAN BEING,

DISPROVED!

BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

FROM A GERMAN JEW,

ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.

LETTER 10.

WEEKLY.

ONE PENNY.

"I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11.

CHRISTIANS,

The dogma, so long and strenuously insisted upon by the knowing among the nations-that opinions which affect religion, or in anywise concern our eternal salvation, it is good to receive without question, or examination, as a sacred heritage-a divine gift, of which priests are the donors, too sacred and too divine to be searched or sought into- has lost much of its dominion over the minds of men; who, since they learned to reason, have discovered that such a dogma was both mischievous and absurd, tending more than any other to perpetuate delusion, and make of religion, which ought to find its support in the sublimest speculations, " a mere raphsody of words," a jargon most discordant and confused, that, instead of exciting the tenderest sympathies of human nature, and giving birth to actions generous and noble, fill weak-minded men with a fanatical and most unjust hatred of each other. The teachers of religion ought to be the most meek, the most humble, loving, charitable, and disinterested of men-shewing examples of virtue and probitypromoters of peace and good-will among mankind, the terror of the evil-doer, the champions of the weak, lovers of the sciences and the arts; they should be stimulaters and directors—not deadeners and checkers, of the spirit of inquiry, and by their conduct leave no