for its demolition, entreating God to cast it utterly to the ground, that He may establish in its stead, His own kingdom of righteousness and truth, and joy and love. And be this accomplished too, good Lord, in our own individual bosoms, for thy name's sake: may our lives bear more strongly Thine own impress-may we daily be more sanctified, and made meet for an enjoyment of Thy presence. Hasten Thine appearing, and glorify Thyself in us. These few lines are hastily written, and intended simply as an incentive to prayer.

Dear Christian friends,

Your humble servant,

M. T. R.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,

OR THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.

No. VI. ANCIENT EUROPE.

I THINK it very probable that my readers may find my many quotations somewhat tedious; but the grandeur and true poetry of the Scandinavian traditions must furnish my excuse. We may challenge the boasted mythology of Greece and Rome, or indeed of any land, (perhaps excepting India,) to furnish anything superior. Their native sublimity, however, is not my only temptation; they bear a strong but deformed resem→ blance to certain passages of Holy Writ. We can have no doubt that traditions, handed down from earliest antiquity; and the national character, tutored into accordance with the savage scenery and stormy skies of Scandinavia, worked out the narrative into the form in which we find it.

Odin or

The deities of this people were many, Woden was the chief of them; he seems, in a great degree, to have combined the ideas embodied by the Greeks in Jupiter and Mars. Originally Odin was probably a provincial mode of pronouncing Adonay,* a common name of God among the Jews and Phonicians.

* Whence was also derived Adonis, the slain god of Tyre and Greece.

But it was in Scandinavia, as elsewhere, "gods many and lords many" drew away the people from the homage they had once paid to the one true God, and every evil and barbarism ensued. The very nature of their deities was cruel. The goddess Freya (who is, in some of her features identical with the Egyptian Bubastis, and the Venus of the Greeks,) is yet little better than a female Typhon. 6 She goes on horseback to every place where battles are fought, and asserts her right to onehalf of the slain; the other half belongs to Odin.' (Edda, p. 53.)

Odin's sole delight was in battles, where he slew a thousand men at one blow, while he himself remained invulnerable.

Thor, his son, the conqueror of the serpent of Midgard,* was also a renowned warrior, and presided over deeds of arms.

As might be expected, these deities were propitiated with rites as savage as the characters ascribed to them. Human victims were constantly sacrificed to Odin and Thor, and lots were drawn, to decide who should die. When it fell to the lot of the king, it was deemed a most auspicious sign, and caused general rejoicing. King Domalder thus fell, as also Olaüs, another king, whom they burned alive, as a sacrifice to Odin. Their own children were frequently slain for the same purpose. One prince destroyed nine of his sons; and king Haquin, as we are told by Saxo Grammaticus, killed his two sons, amiable young persons, to propitiate the

It is curious as interesting to observe how constantly the Son of God is identified with the conqueror of the serpent. In almost every ancient mythology we find this characteristic of the slain god or hero. Greece, India, Scandinavia, &c. all bear witness to the universal spread of the prophecy in Eden. (Gen. iii. 15.)

Here

god of the sea to destroy the fleet of his enemy. we recognise one of the worst features of the Canaanites. Parental affection was one of the first sacrifices exacted by the Scandinavian religion, as well as that of the Hivite and Jebusite.

The great scene of human slaughter was at Upsala, in Sweden; where there was a sacred grove, in which the detestable rites were performed; and where every tree was deemed holy, as Adam of Bremen tells us, because they were stained with blood, and foul with the corruption of human bodies. The corpses of those who were not burned, were hung on these trees, and left to putrefy. Great feasts and intemperance accompanied these sacrifices, and Tacitus tells us, that all the slaves who had assisted were afterwards destroyed by their masters.

Upon the whole, the mythology and worship of these inhospitable, gloomy regions are quite as savage as those of Egypt; and we find as little of the true "light of the world" here, as upon the banks of the Nile. What charms of religion, or exhibition of moral beauty can we expect among a people whose only recognized virtue was a blind and suicidal bravery, and whose sole delight was the extermination of their fellow-men? The moral gloom of Scandinavia was as dark as the thunder-clouds that brooded over her mountains: no ray of humanity, of pity, nor of piety, brightened the scene; all was stern, barbarous, and bloody.

Nor does the view of our own islands, in those early ages, give any relief to a mind wearied with the contemplation of heathen darkness and barbarism. In Britain, the Druidical superstition adored its oaks, and sacrificed its human victims by thousands.

Diogenes Laertius, in his prologue, maintains that

the Druids of Gaul and Britain were analogous to the Magi of the Persians and Indians, the Chaldeans of Assyria, (Dan. ii. 4, 5, &c.) and the philosophers of Greece. Strabo (lib. 4.) tells us that the Druids be→ lieved in the perpetual renewal and revolutions of the earth, which was never to be annihilated; an opinion so common among the Oriental sages, (and from them derived by the Greeks,) that we may regard this coincidence of doctrine as one proof of the near relation between these Celtic Druids and the philosophers of Asia. Ouraroff, in his admirable Treatise on the Mysteries of Eleusis, says, (Notes, p. 112.) The Egyptian priests were considered as an Asiatic colony even among the ancients;' and quotes a passage from Zonaras (Ed. du Cange, 1729, vol. i. p. 14.) who says, 'It is said, that these things came from Chaldea into Egypt, and thence into Greece. Now, if Egypt, so often regarded as the original fountain of all learning and religion, derived her stores from the East, it is no disparagement to the more barbarous Druids to regard them as drawing from the same source: and if the identity of their doctrines with those of the African and Oriental magi can be proved, (for which I refer my readers to the learned Faber's 'Dissertation on the Cabiri,' last chapter) we shall be driven to confess that Druidism is only a new phase of that old system of idolatry which may be traced through Egypt and Asia, and may be seen in fuller developement in India.

The supreme god of the Ancient Britons was named Hesus or Esus, and considered to be embodied in oak trees, which were consequently held sacred and adorable. The very name of Druid is supposed to be derived from the British word derw or dru, an oak; though some have given it a different origin.