around which the young people dance, precisely the same as in England."* A few days after this festival the Hindu feast in honor of Aurana, the day-star (Venus), takes place, when sacrifices are made to remove sterility and promote generation.†

On May-day eve, it was the custom of the ancient Celts to make great fires on the cairns crowning the hills. These fires were called Bealtines, and were made in honor of Baal, Beal, Bel, or THE SUN. They commemorated the return of the active principle, of which, as we have often said, the Sun is a universal symbol. According to Toland, two of these fires were kindled in every village on May-day, through which, or between which, all the inhabitants and their domesticated animals were obliged to pass. By this rite, coinciding with that of Moloch mentioned in the Bible, they were supposed to be regenerated, renewed, purified. § The word purify un

*Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 333.

+ In Ireland the vernal equinox seems to have been specifically devoted to the celebration of the male principle, and the autumnal equinox, at the period of the maturity of the fruits of the earth, to the female principle. The propriety of the distinction is obvious. Upon this point O'Brien observes:-"The eve of the vernal equinox was called Aiche Baal-tinne, that is, the night of Baal's fire; the eve of the autumnal, Aiche Shamain, that is, the night of the moon's solemnity: on both of which occasions fires were lighted on all the high-places dedicated to their worship." -(Round Towers of Ireland, p. 199.)

Some of the cairns of the primitive Britons were secondarily used as stations or look-outs, upon which fires were lighted as signals. Lighting fires for this purpose, upon elevated positions, is an old and almost universal practice. When Col. Fremont penetrated into the fastnesses of Upper California, where his appearance created great alarm among the Indians, he observed this primitive telegraph system in operation. "Columns of smoke rose over the country at scattered intervals,-signals by which the Indians here, as elsewhere, communicate to each other that enemies are in the country. It is a signal of ancient and very universal application among barbarians."-(Second Expedition, p. 220.)

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"At

The Peruvians, it is well known, in addition to their relays of runners, had signal or telegraphic stations, for the transmission of important intelligence. each quarter of a league," says La Vega, book iv. chap. 7, a cabin was built upon an eminence, in which men watched perpetually News of rebellion was communicated by signals of fire."

The Scotch Highlanders used to pass through the fire in honor of Beal, and thought it a religious duty to walk around their flocks and fields carrying fire.”— Logan, ii. p. 364.

The Jews considered fire a great purifier. "To be purified seven times in the fire" appears to have been a Hebrew proverb, to which there seems to be an allusion

doubtedly owes its origin to this practice; it comes from the Greek root pur, "fire."-(Maurice, as above.) The Hebrew festival of the Passover, it has been claimed, had its origin in the Egyptian festival commemorating the passage of the Sun across the equinoctial line. It will be remembered that it was on this occasion that the Paschal lamb was sacrificed. The Hebrew pesach, it is conceded on all hands, signifies passage. Maurice is reluctantly forced to admit that the ancient Jews and their descendants still keep this solar festival at the vernal equinox.* This authority adds, "I have little doubt that May-day, or at least the day when the Sun entered Taurus, has been immemorably kept as a sacred festival, from the creation of the earth and man, and was originally intended as a memorial of that auspicious period and momentous event!"

in the 16th verse of the third chapter of St. Luke: "John answered saying, I indeed baptize you with water," but one cometh "who shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." A Christian sect appeared in Spain, in the ages immediately following the Christian era, which burned the sign of the cross on their foreheads, instead of marking it with the water of baptism.

It was no earlier than 1220 that the Archbishop of London extinguished the perpetual fire which was maintained in a small cell near the church of Kildare; but it was soon rekindled, and actually kept burning until the suppression of the monasteries.-(Archdall's Mon. Hib. apud Auth. Hib. iii. 240.) This fire was kept up by virgins often of high rank, called daughters of the fire (inghean an dagha), or fire keepers (breochwidh), which led to their being confounded with the nuns of St. Bridget.-(Michelet's France, vol. ii. p. 380.)

* "It is remarkable how widely, almost universally extended throughout the earlier world, appears the institution of a solemn period of mourning about the autumnal, and of rejoicing about the vernal equinox. The suspension, or apparent extinction of the great vivifying power of nature, Osiris or Iacchus; the destitution of Ceres, Iris, or the Earth, of her husband or her beautiful daughter, torn in pieces or carried away into their realms by the malignant powers of darkness; their re-appearance in all their bright and fertilizing energy; these, in their different forms, were the great annual fast and festival of the early heathen worship."— (Milman, Hist. Christ., vol. i. p. 13.)

In the tenth chapter of his twelfth book, Torquemada observes that the devil counterfeited the Feast of the Passover among the Mexicans: "This third month of the Mexicans commenced in March, which was the solemn Passover of the Jews, lasting for eight days. They (i. e. the Jews) then offered the first fruits of the ripe grain and of the ears, which it was unlawful for them to taste before that period. The Indians observed the same custom in this month, which they celebrated in honor of the god or gods of rain; and as they had no grain or ears of corn to present,

It has already been mentioned that the Floridians and Mexicans erected a tree in the centre of their sacred enclosures, on the occasion of the solar festival, around which they danced. May we not regard this tree as coinciding with the May-pole of the Celts and Hindus? Its significance seems to have been the same.

since the corn was then only in the leaf, their offerings consisted of flowers, which, at the commencement of this month, were in greater abundance than at any period of the year, as it was the beginning of spring." Garcia affirms that a precisely similar practice existed amongst the Peruvians.

THE worship of the Sun was not less general in America than it was at one period among the primitive nations of the Old World. It existed among the savage hunter-tribes and among the semi-civilized nations of the South; where it assumed its most complicated and imposing form, and approximated closely to that which it sustained at an early period among the Asiatic nations,—the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hindus, Scythians, and their offshoots in Europe. It is well known that it predominated in Peru, and was intimately connected with the civil institutions of that empire. The race of the Incas claimed their descent from the sun; to that luminary they erected their most gorgeous temples; and the eternal fire, everywhere emblematic of its influences, was watchfully maintained by the virgins consecrated to its service. The royal Inca himself officiated as priest of the sun, on every return of its annual festival. The Peruvians also paid adoration to the moon, as the "wife of the sun," a clear recognition of the doctrine of the reciprocal principles. In Mexico also, as in Central America, we still discover, beneath a complication of strange observances and bloody rites, the simplicity of Toltican Sabianism. Upon the high altars of Aztec superstition, reeking with the blood of countless human victims, we still find the eternal fire; no longer, however, under the benign guardianship of consecrated virgins, but consigned to the vigilance of a stern and rigorous priesthood. And, as the Inca trusted at his death to be received to the bosom of his father, the Sun, so too did the fiercer Aztec look forward with confidence to eternal existence and beatitude in the "House of the Sun."*

The Natchez and their affiliated tribes were worshippers of the sun, to which they erected temples and performed sacrifices. And from what can be gathered concerning their temples, it is rendered probable

* Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 3. "They held for an assured faith that there were nine places appointed for souls, and the chiefest place of glory was to be near the sun." -(Gomera, in Purchas, vol. iii. p. 1137.)

They

that they erected structures analogous to those of Mexico. also maintained a perpetual fire, and their chiefs claimed the sun as their father. The chiefs bore the distinguishing title of Suns, and united in themselves the priestly and civil functions.—(Charlevoix, Canada, vol. ii. p. 273; Du Pratz, Hist. Louisiana, vol. ii. pp. 178, 212; Herriot, Hist. Canada, p. 508.) The natives of the Barbadoes, and the West India islands generally, worshipped the same celestial body in conjunction with the moon.—(Edward's Hist. W. Ind., vol. i. p. 80; Davis's Barbadoes, pp. 216, 236; Herrara, vol. i. p. 162.) The Hurons derived the descent of their chiefs from the sun, and claimed that the sacred pipe proceeded from that luminary.-(Charlevoix, Canada, vol. i. p. 322; Lafiteau, vol. i. p. 121.) The Pawnees, Mandans, and Minatarees, had a similar tradition and a kindred worship.— (Nutall's Arkansas, p. 276.) The Delawares and the Iroquois offered sacrifices to the sun and moon; and, in common with the southern Indians, had a festival in honor of the elementary fire, which they considered the first parent of the Indian nations. It is probable that their councilfire was an original symbol of their religion.-(Loskiel, pp. 41, 43; Colden's Hist. Five Nations, vol. i. pp. 115, 175; Schoolcraft's Narrative, p. 20; Bradford's Res., p. 352.) The Virginian tribes were also sun worshippers, and sustained the perpetual fire in some of their temples. The same is true, as we have already had occasion to show, in a remarkable manner, of the Floridian tribes; who, if we are to credit the accounts of the early voyagers, sacrificed human victims to the sun.(Ribauld, M.S.; Le Moyne, in De Bry; Herrara, Florida; Lafiteau, Moeurs des Sauvages, vol. i. p. 158; Rochefort, Hist. Antilles, chap. 8.) The Esquimaux, the natives of the Northwest Coast, and the California Indians, all shared in this worship.-(Hall's Voy. [1631,] pp. 38, 61; Vanegas's California, vol. i. p. 164.) It prevailed to an equal extent among the savage tribes of South America. In connection with the worship of the moon, it existed among the Muyscas of Colombia, among the Araucanians, the Puelches, and the Botucados of Brazil.— (Herrara, vol. v. p. 91; Molina, vol. ii. p. 71; Dobrizhoffer, vol. ii. p. 89; Mod. Trav. in Brazil, vol. ii. p. 183.) The caziques of the Guaranies, like those of the Natchez, were called Suns, and claimed a like lofty lineage. The evidence upon this point might be greatly extended; but enough has been adduced to establish the general predominance of Sun-Worship in America.*

* "Sun-worship existed extensively in North as well as South America. There is reason to believe that the ancestors of all the principal existing tribes of America worshipped the Eternal Fire. Both from their records and traditions, as well as