festival and special national "act of faith." "Now it was the annual custom for a priest In that country, too, the more innocent Ori- to climb to the top of one of these pillars by the ental custom of sacred dances still lingers aid of a cord drawn round the column and his before the altars of Seville.* The initiation own body, in the same manner as the gatherers And the reaof Julian in the heathen mysteries at Paris, of dates ascend their palm trees. is exactly reproduced in the medieval le- son of his going up is this, that most people gend of St. Patrick's purgatory, reminding the gods, and asks blessings for all Syria. He think that from this height he converses with us that Gaul and Ireland were peopled by remains there seven days, drawing up his food the same Celtic race. In both cases the by a rope. The pilgrims bring some gold and mysteries were celebrated in caves, and silver, and others brass money, which they lay fiery apparitions and terrors were succeeded down before him, while another priest repeats by visions of comfort and brightness.† In the names to him, upon which he prays for each the neighbourhood of Arles the names of offerer by name, ringing a bell as he does so. two patron saints, St. Victor and St. Mar- He never sleeps, for if he did it is said that a tha, preserve the memory of the victory of scorpion would bite him. Moreover, this temMarius over the Cimbri, and of the prophet-ple exhales a most delightful perfume like that ess Martha, who encouraged him; while the of Arabia, which never leaves the garments of peasants still keep up the custom of light- such as approach it." ing bonfires on the feast of St. Victor, just Now with the classical author's account as they used to do in ancient times on the compare the narrative of Evagrius four cenanniversary of the great battle. In Rome turies later.* "Simon of holy memory the union of civil and religious authority in originated (?) the contrivance of stationing the same magistrates, the Pontiff-King, and himself on the top of a column forty cubits the "congregations, as they are called, high, where, placed between earth and of purple-robed cardinals, recall to our heaven, he holds communion with God, and thoughts the imperial pontiffs and the dig- unites with the angels; from earth offering nified colleges of Flamens and Augurs of the his intercessions on behalf of men, and ancient commonwealth. Indeed we can read from heaven drawing down upon them the on the pedestal of the same obelisk the divine favour; " but it is too painful to pronames of two Pontifices Maximi, the one a ceed with the tale of degrading superstition pagan prince, the other a Christian pope. that could once delude great cities and sovThe childish credulity of idle Naples-ereigns, and even impose on so learned a "otiosa credidit Neapolis "t-continues father as Theodoret. unaltered to the present day. Witchcraft read again, "any person approaches the and fascination by the evil eye are univer-spot where is deposited the precious coffin sally believed in; and as incense was sup-in which are the holy relics, he is filled with posed to liquefy without fire in the heathen an odour surpassing in sweetness every pertemple, so is the congealed blood of St. fume with which mankind are acquainted." Gennaro in the Christian Church. In the What can be plainer than that we have here Eastern Church holy fish may sometimes be no apostolical tradition or inspired devotion, seen, as in the church of a monastery near but simply a revival of the old national Constantinople, so that the ancient " super-superstition of the country? According to stition of consecrating animals," as Tertul the bold metaphor of Juvenal, "the Syrian lian calls it, is not even yet entirely extinct. Orontes had once flowed into the Roman But one of the most extraordinary accom- Tiber." So now the whole Euphrates had modations of heathen ideas to corrupt poured into the Christian Jordan, and Christianity is the now obsolete form of as-swept away pastors and flocks together. ceticism, introduced by Simon Stylites in No event of this period created a greater the neighbourhood of Antioch, and very sensation than the discovery of the relics popular during the last age of the Roman of St. Stephen. When discovered, they Empire. We are told by Lucian, § in his were guarded by two large serpents, tame interesting treatise on the Syrian goddess, and harmless, like the snake which apthat in Hierapolis, on the Euphrates, there peared to Eneas at the tomb of his father stood a renowned temple of the Assyrian Anchises.† Juno, in front of which two columns, each thirty cubits high, were set up in the shape of phalli.

Whenever," we

But let us pass from these anecdotes of the fifth century to what may be seen every day in the churches of the Continent, and see whether the Pagan element be not still unmistakably present in the unreformed part of Christendom.

still in constant use in Spain, and we all know that the small scourge called a discipline is an essential appendage to a strict Romish devotee. It is not recommended in the Bible or by the primitive fathers, but we find it in high esteem among the priests of Astarte, from whom, no doubt, its use was transmitted to the paganized Christians. Apuleius thus describes it:

The visitor as he enters some great Roman basilica or Belgian cathedral, can no longer complain as the pagans used to do, "Why have these Christians no temples, no altars, no familiar images ?" All round are chapels like the minor shrines which encompassed the temple of Capitoline Jove. Some are private lararia belonging to certain families, and containing their tombs before the images of their patron divi. "The fanatics seize the scourge, which is Others are in honour of the special heav- their peculiar implement (gestamen), and lash enly protector to whom the city or church themselves unmercifully with repeated strokes, is dedicated. For, as Tertullian remarks, being fortified against the pain with marvellous "Every province or town has its own pecu- constancy. I was surprised on beholding their liar tutelary powers; " and Ammianus Mar- wounds, and the blood streaming on the ground, cellinus shows how countries obtained their how the stomach of the foreign goddess could patron saints before the rise of Christianity, endure such a spectacle.”* where he relates how the city of Mopsuestia The same author elsewhere presents us with was called from Mopsus, who lost his way heathenism under a more pleasing aspect :when returning from the Argonautic expedition and died suddenly in Africa, where "I beheld," he says, "maidens strewing "his heroic manes covered by the Punic flowers, followed by a great number of persons soil are very effectual in healing a variety of both sexes bearing wax candles, in order to of sicknesses." All the altars are adorned propitiate the Lady Daughter of the Stars. Then with large candles, but the favourite image came boys in white, chanting a melodious hymn, is especially distinguished by a multitude next a crowd of the religious, male and female, of wax tapers, the offerings of devout per-white veils on their heads, the men in linen with pure white dresses; the women wearing

sons.

Thus the temple of Daphne is said to have taken fire from the wax candles which Julian's friend had left before the lofty feet of the image before retiring for the night. accensis cereis ex usu cessit."+ They light up tapers and candles before their idols," says the eloquent Lactantius,

though what can be greater absurdity than to imagine so to propitiate the Creator of light and of the sun? Leave we these follies to the false gods, which must needs be in the dark if we do not supply them with such artificial illuminations." A partiality for candles in the daylight is an infallible token of a superstitious taste. In many Roman and Greek churches there are to be found images, pictures, or relics, possessing miraculous properties. A chalice has been filled with blood instead of wine, as in the pious fraud of the Gnostics exposed by Hippolitus, or an image has sweated and leaped like the Palladium mentioned in Virgil, or winked like the "stones which are called living" that Heliogabalus carried off from the temple of Laodicæan Diana. Images wrought by angels, or painted by St. Luke and sent down from heaven, are not uncommon, and recall the AOTETоs of Ephesus, the image which fell down from Jupiter, mentioned in the Acts. If we may believe

Lady Herbert, the practice of flagellation is

Sozom, xiv. 8.

↑ Ammian. xxii. 13.
+ vi. 2

robes, with their hair shorn. Some beating their breasts, others bearing palms and pyxes, the mystic symbols of our Lady of Help. Finally, the long succession of images, altars, and sacred vases, is closed by a priest, from whose shoulders hung down to the ankles a precious cloak, embroidered all over with strange animals, such as Indian dragons and Hyperborean griffins, men call it the Olympian stole.' This priest carries on his happy bosom the ineffable and indescribable symbol of the Supreme Divinity. It was not like any living thing, not even like man himself, but was the inexpressible

manifestation of the highest and most mysterious secret of the religion; in short, a small round urn of polished gold, exquisitely wrought."+

After reading this account of the mysteries of Isis in the last age of paganism, we can be at no loss how to explain why the Host is carried in procession in a golden pyx or monstrance, on the festival of Corpus Christi in the modern Roman Church. In the primitive Church of Rome there was no Host at all. Hostias domino offeram? " "Shall I offer victims to the Lord," is the indignant question of the Roman Christian in Minucius Felix, "when the victim fit for sacrifice is a good mind, a pure understanding and sincere judgment?" The

• Met. viii.
† xi.

66

The full text of the passage is "Hostias et victimas domino offeram, quas in usum mei protulit, ut rejiciam ei suum mumi! ingratum est; cum sit litabilis hostia bonus animus et pura mens et sincera sententia." Octavius, 32.

follow every one who looks at it; beneath are placed numerous lamps, and votive tablets and wax models are hung around (precisely as in the chapel of the Virgin now,) memorials of cures and deliverances wrought by the patroness of the sanctuary.”*

very shape of the consecrated wafer is bor- and rich attire. Its head is surmounted by rays, rowed from the round cakes of flour cus-its hand bears a sceptre, and its eyes seem to tomary in the heathen sacrifices. Communion in one kind seems to have passed into the Church from the Manichean heretics, of whom St. Augustine says, 'vinum non bibunt." If we may believe the same father, those heretics also entertained some very gross and carnal notions as to the corThe image of Juno at Hierapolis had poral admixture of a divine substance with some other noticeable points of resemblance the bread in the eucharist, which may have to those of the Blessed Virgin in the south suggested the idea that developed into of Europe. Thus, when it was carried in transubstantiation at a later period. The procession to the lake near the temple, it words of the mass are, for the most part, seemed to guide its bearers, as it were the pious and scriptural prayers of the early directing them by reins; and it would someChurch, and as there is no reason why they times refuse to stir till entreated by the should be kept secret, it seems strange that high-priest himself, just as in the legend of they should be read in an obsolete language, St. Cuthbert's journey to Durham. Now and muttered over so as to be unintelligible there were many fish in the lake, and for even to good Latin scholars. But the dif- their sake great care was taken that Jupiter ficulty is explained when we refer to pagan should not see them until Juno had first usage. The Hymns of Ancient Rome were been brought down; for all the fish would read, we are told, in an ancient tongue, die if his image were to draw near, but she, "scarcely understood by the priests them- standing close at hand, keeps him off, and, selves, but which a reverential scruple for- by many entreaties, dismisses him pacified." bids to be altered." An affectation of mys- The student of art need not be reminded tery was, no doubt, the cause why priests, that this is exactly the part assigned to the enchanters, and other pretenders to the Virgin in the legends of the Church of supernatural, endeavoured to conceal what Rome, for she is represented in countless formula they used. The Egyptian language pictures as standing before her Son and was preferred by the sorcerers, as we learn deprecating his vengeance, on behalf of from Lucian, and he tells us of a Chaldean mankind. As the cultus of the Blessed enchanter who offered a long prayer to the Virgin Mary is every year rapidly on the rising sun, "which," he adds, "I could not increase, and threatens ere long to be the well understand, for, like bad criers in the one religious idea of a large part of Christenmarket-place, he pronounced in a hurried and dom, it becomes a most interesting question indistinct manner, only he seemed to be in- to ask, whence it is derived. Scripture is voking certain demons, and murmuring cer- silent. The fathers, even of the later centain foreign, barbarous, obscure and polysyl- turies, were decidedly opposed to it. Everylabic words." This description applies to thing proclaims it to be an inheritance from many of the devotions of the unreformed paganism. In all heathen systems a promiChurches, especially to the administration of nent share is taken by the worship of nabaptism, which, to a stranger, has completely ture. Her various powers and aspects have the air of an incantation. But let us turn to been invariably personified under the charwhat is, after all, the most popular and character of ideal and mostly feminine being, to acteristic part of the worship of modern Romanism. The high altar is by no means the most revered spot in the sanctuaries of the Continent. Behind that altar is a chapel, more richly decorated than any other part of the church, where a group of worshippers may generally be found even when no service is proceeding.

whom the imagination of poets has subsequently assigned fanciful names, and allegorical actions and offices. In the decline of the classical paganism, the old poetic legends of Greece, Rome, Asia, and Egypt were subjected to philosophic treatment, and the substantial unity of the various goddesses came to be generally recognized. Thus the The object of this intense devotion may devotee of Isis in Apuleius addresses his aptly be described in the language of Lucian, patron deity as follows: "O Queen of speaking of the image of the Syrian god-heaven, by whatsoever name thou art called, dess:

"We behold a majestic female, larger than life, all covered with gold, and precious stones,

Philopsaides. ↑ Menippus.

whether benign Ceres, or heavenly Venus, or sister of Phoebus, or awful Proserpine," and this, indeed, seems to have been the doctrine revealed to the initiated in the

De Dea Syria.

mysteries of Eleusis, but which moreover | name. She has, too, somehow appropriated insisted much on the sorrows of the goddess, a star like the old Grecian deity, and is meaning, as is supposed, the grief of nature much worshipped by mariners as the star of for the bloom of spring blighted by scorching suns and desert storms. Now with the public mind saturated with such notions as these, and inured by the habits of ages to the contemplation of womanly grace, purity, loveliness, tenderness, and, above all, maternity, what a void must have been felt on the promulgation of Christianity! Indeed, the writings of the fathers prove that this was the principal stumbling-block in the way of the Gospel becoming popular. A King of Heaven had been revealed, but where was the Queen? Her throne stood empty. The personified Church" Jerusalem, the mother of us all"-seemed a cold abstraction, and failed to content the popular craving for the familiar form of the heavenly lady..

Men did not think of calling God our Father and Mother, as Theodore Parker used to do. The heretical sects again and again introduced some female saint or heavenly being, a Helena, or such-like imaginary creature, to the notice of the Christian public; but the void was not filled up, and the demand for a goddess was increasingly experienced, as ignorant converts pressed into the Church under the Christian emperors. At length, in some of the eastern controversies of the fourth century, attention was almost accidentally drawn to the position of the Virgin Mother. The subtle disputes about the nature of the God-man drew men's thoughts to Mary, and at once, just as in the electrotype process, the floating paganism, which hung diluted in the spirit of the times, precipitated itself around her figure as a centre, and overlaid the simple Mary of Nazareth, as she appears in the Gospel, with a gorgeous and elaborate chasing of variegated superstition. By a curious felicity every traditional feeling, every passionate longing of the old faith, found what it needed in some aspect of St. Mary. As Virgin, she gratified the admiration for maidenly purity expressed in the worship of Minerva and the chaste Diana, the latter resigning to her the crescent moon, which a happy misapplication of the Apocalypse placed beneath her feet. As Mother (Theotokos), she realized the aspirations of the devotees of Cybele, mother of the gods, and Demeter, the sorrowing parent, whose grief for Proserpine was perpetuated in her dolours at the cross. Like Vesta, she has priestesses devoted to perpetual virginity. A queen of heaven like Juno, she is like Venus Aphrodite, connected with the sea by a false etymology of her

the sea. Women bewail her griefs as they did those of Venus Astarte for Adonis or Tammuz. As Spouse, by some wresting of the Canticles, she is no less renowned, and is as much worshipped in the Levant as ever Isis was; and here, too, the dolours find a place, for the sorrow of Isis for her murdered husband was every year commemorated by a solemn fast. Nor are howlings at night wanting to complete her resemblance to Hecate, as Ford has justly remarked in speaking of Spanish customs. This strange metamorphosis of the modest retiring woman Mary into a gaudy, bustling, interfering, spiritual potentate, delighting in fine clothes and coarse flattery, was first encouraged by a council at Ephesus, which had been for ages the seat of the worship of a virgin goddess, and it was finally sanetioned by another council held in Bithynia, the favourite haunt of the Idaan mother of the gods and her followers, the Corybantes, The time and space forbid me to bring forward other illustrations, with which all antiquity abounds, of the transition from paganism to corrupt Christianity.

It is by no means implied that everything pagan was on that account unfit to be incorporated in Christianity. Some of the usages referred to were simply the natural expression of devotion; others, as embroidered robes, chanting, and incense, had been sanetioned in the worship of the Hebrew Church. The object of this essay is merely to remove all mystery from the peculiarities of unreformed Christianity, and to show that it has nothing which may not be satisfactorily accounted for by natural causes. No doubt many pagan customs were adopted without any bad intention; or, as in the recommendation of Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury,* with the good object of winning the heathen to the Gospel. The ceremonial and legendary system of paganism had many romantic charms which are still retained by them under their Christian dress. But though some admixture of pagan ideas and practices might be innocently tolerated, it is quite another matter when we see a vast structure of errors, such as Apostles and martyrs died to withstand, superadded to the faith once delivered to the saints. Tacitus tells us that even the ancient Germans thought it unworthy the dignity of heavenly beings to fashion the

gods after the likeness of the human counte- | shown, once more, that with energy and persenance.* It is to be hoped that no nation verance the country can do all that London can of Teutonic descent will voluntarily return do in journalism.”

to that half-Christianized paganism of Rome which its ancestors rejected.

* Germ. 9.

N. G. BATT.

From The Gentleman's Magazine.
ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPERS.

Not quite all. The writer gushed just a trifle in this part of his leader. He would admit the soft impeachment we are sure. But here are some details which are interesting:

"We have had some curious instances of the general want of knowledge concerning pictorial papers. Our artist was present the other day at a festival gathering. The director was astonished that a picture of the event could not be published in the current issue of our paper, which would appear two days afterwards. Some of our readers would be exceedingly surprised could they watch the progress of a local illustration from its commencement until its publication in the Illustrated Paper. In the first place the artist must make his sketch; then he, or a draughtsman having special experience of the subject, re-draws the sketch upon prepared block of wood. He must define every detail with care and exactness. When his work is finished the wood holds a high-class drawing, such as might cost you in an ordinary way from five to fifty guineas. It has then to be engraved. Supposing the picture is a large one, the block is divided and placed in the hands of several engravers. They cut the wood, with the sharpest of edge tools, into such a shape that the printer can take impressions from it. This process alone, for a block the full size of one of our pages, cannot be covered, in the most ordinary case, by an expense of less than twenty guin

A NEW mania in journalism. The newspaper has arrived at the illustrated phase. Comic literature has come out of the epidemic tolerably successfully; the magazines have got down to a dead level of bad drawing and worse engraving; and now comes the turn of the more serious publications the newspapers. We shall soon see what they make of it. The growing taste for a pictures, and the demand for art education, has recently brought into exisfence two illustrated papers, which are, in every respect, novelties in journalism. We allude to the Graphic, and the Illustrated Midland News. Looking at what the provinces had achieved in the way of newspapers, the projectors of the Illustrated Midland News declared that the time had arrived when the country might fairly compete with London in the production of an illustrated newspaper. As the metropolis of the Midlands, eas. Twenty guineas for the mere engraving of they selected Birmingham for their headquarters. In September, last year, the paper appeared. The first number reached nearly thirty thousand copies. In less than two months we find the editor writing almost pathetically of the difficulties attending the publication of an illustrated paper in the provinces:

a single picture! It is then far from ready to print. The practised machine-printer, with something of an artist's feelings for the lights and shadows of the drawing, next proceeds to lays and underlays, bearers for the lighter parts, prepare his block for the press. Special overstrengthening coverings for the heavier shadows, have to be cut and carved and fitted. The whole process is one requiring the greatest care

"With plenty of money there is no difficulty and judgment; and all this work is supplementwhatever in producing a magnificent illustrated ed with the ordinary labours attending the pubpaper in London. Every appliance for the work lication of a newspaper. If any difficulty arises is at your command. Artists, engravers, print- in the course of the work, there are no skilled ers, are on the spot ready to receive and execute hands in the next street to render assistance. your orders. In the country all is new and A few weeks ago we felt these obstacles imstrange. There is hardly an artist in the prov-impression is one that we can point to with honmensely. We feel them no longer. Our last inces who can draw upon the wood for newspaper illustrations; and we have met with no engraver who could cut the artist's work, supposing the block was prepared. Ninety-nine out

est satisfaction."

The editor wrote this in November. The

Graphic had not then appeared. Within of every hundred printers in the country know the last few weeks the provincial conductor nothing of " bringing up cuts." To print an illustrated newspaper in Birmingham is to intro- has made further progress in his mechanical Some of his illustrations duce a new industry into the provinces. In face arrangements. of enormous difficulties we have started this new have by no means been up to the high industry; we have added a new branch to pro- standard of excellence which is necessary vincial printing; we have added a fresh page to maintain the success of the early numto the history of provincial journalism; we have bers. These, however, were the work of