immensely large mouths, with teeth like saws, which are their chief weapons of destruction, though they are not destitute of poison. The Hydra is one of the most celebrated, both for its glittering beauty, and its destructive fierceness and venom. It is probable that in some passages of Scripture where dragons are mentioned, the creature intended was either of the Boa or Sea-Serpent kind.

The serpent has been an early and almost universal object of worship in heathen nations. Without carrying our young readers into the laborious investigations and disquisitions of various writers on this subject, which are not absolutely necessary to our attaining a tolerable understanding of Scripture references, we shall just observe a few circumstances from which serpent worship appears to have arisen.

1. The serpent has been regarded as denoting or producing evil. The destructive venom of this tribe is so universally known, that we cannot wonder at their being looked upon as betokening or producing calamity. Even a distorted tradition of the statements of scripture, would confirm the idea. Hence we find that in Indian mythology, the destroying power, or death, is signified by the serpent. classic antiquity, the giants who attempted to scale heaven, are figured as half serpents; and heroes who were very successful in abolishing evils, were represented as having vanquished and destroyed formidable and monstrous serpents. Such was Apollo, the

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destroyer of Python; Hercules, of the hydra, or manyheaded serpent. In the northern mythology, Lok, the genius of evil, is styled the father of the great serpent, the father of death, the adversary, the accuser, the deceiver of the gods, &c. The coincidence of these titles with the Satan of scripture, is very evident, and it might have thence been supposed that all mankind would have abhorred and execrated the creature which was thus regarded as the source of evil; but when once men forsook the worship of the one true God, the steps were easy, not only to the worship of many imaginary deities, but of opposite powers, whom they feared to offend, and hoped to propitiate.

2. But the serpent has also been regarded as denoting and producing good. Several nations, in their traditionary records of the general deluge, ascribe to a sea-serpent some benevolent agency in the preservation of the little remnant of mankind : to this many ancient emblematical devices evidently refer. From the medicinal use made of the flesh of snakes and serpents by ancient physicians, the serpent came to be considered as an emblem of health, and a serpent turned round a wand, was the constant symbol of Esculapius the god of health, who was indeed said to have been conveyed into Rome in the form of a serpent; hence the Esculapian snake was commonly fed and domesticated in houses.

3. Serpents were honoured as denoting beings of supernatural powers. This, in all probability, origi

nated in garbled traditions of the statements of scripture. The word Seraph is there alike applied to a species of serpent, and to an order of celestial beings, high in dignity and benevolent in character, the ministers of God for good to the sons of men. The word Nachash also signifies a serpent, a very destructive serpent; and from some recent researches in Oriental literature, there appears some reason to conclude that the word, or one nearly allied to it, may intend an order of angels, probably malignant evil powers, also: indeed, there is a tradition of a contest between serpents and man in innocence, about the liquor of immortality. The sentiment might also be favoured by the beauty of the serpent, and its extraordinary endowments, both of sagacity and agility, with which superstition might easily connect a kind of divinity. The age to which it attains, and the continual renewal of its beauty by changing its skin, might also give an idea of immortality. The serpent too, in ancient symbols, denoted the year, which may be said to revolve on itself, and return into itself. The encircling serpent was also considered as an emblem of eternity.

4. The serpent might also be a national distinction: among the first names which distinguished mankind were those taken from creatures to which they discovered some real or fancied resemblance in disposition and manners; these designations adhered to the families, and, in process of time, to the tribes or nations formed by them; and as idolatry spread, the

creature, whence their family name was derived, was regarded with superstitious reverence. In Egypt and other Oriental countries, a serpent was the common symbol of a powerful monarch; it was embroidered on their robes, and blazoned on their diadem, to signify their absolute power and invincible might, and intimating that as the wound of a serpent is incurable, so the fatal effects of their displeasure were neither to be avoided nor endured. These circumstances fully account for the worship of serpents in those idolatrous nations.

But it is time we should enter on the historical facts and other references of Scripture to this formidable race of creatures.

(1.) We are carried back to the garden of Eden, Gen. iii. where the serpent is introduced as the seducer of our first parents from their allegiance to God. He is described as more subtle than all the beasts of the field. The sagacity and craft of these creatures are still very remarkable; and it is probable that before the fall they were yet more preeminent, and approached nearer to the gift of reason than the powers displayed by other creatures. The devil, the arch seducer of the human race, is represented as availing himself of the form of a serpent; what kind of serpent we are not informed, nor how he was endowed with the gift of speech, or how, if that circumstance were new and unusual, it excited no suspicion in the mind of Eve. Many conjectures have been offered on these subjects; some have sup

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posed that angelic intelligences were in the habit of visiting and holding intercourse with man, and that they assumed a similar form; but Scripture says nothing, and it becomes us to be silent. Enough for us is the painful fact, that the temptation was too successfully presented: the artful enemy questioned the authority and truth of God, and persuaded Eve to transgress the divine command, by eating of the forbidden fruit; assuring her that the effect would prove most advantageous, and the punishment by no means certain. She yielded, and persuaded her husband, and their disobedience brought death into the world, and all our woe. When the offenders were arraigned at the Divine tribunal, each referred the offence to the suggestions of another. woman," said Adam," she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." "The serpent," said Eve, "beguiled me, and I did eat." Alas! how soon had she discovered, to her cost, that his fair promises were fatal delusions!' No questions were asked of the serpent, for no way of mercy was to be opened to fallen spirits, whose instrument it had become, but sentence was immediately passed; first on the brute creature, that had been the instrument of the mischief, and next on Satan, who had been the grand agent. The serpent was cursed above all cattle, and sentenced to creep upon its belly, and eat dust as its food. It had hitherto, it appears, possessed an erect form, and fed on herbage and fruits, but now being sentenced to a grovelling posture, his food would