Moon Lore Part 6

In the far-off New Hebrides the Eramangans "wors.h.i.+p the moon, having images in the form of the new and full moons, made of a kind of stone. They do not pray to these images, but cleave to them as their protecting G.o.ds." [242]

We have now circ.u.mnavigated the globe, touching at many points, within many degrees of lat.i.tude and longitude. But everywhere, among men of different literatures and languages, colours and creeds, we have discovered the wors.h.i.+p of the moon. No nation has outgrown the practice, for it obtains among the polished as well as the rude. One thing, indeed, we ought to have had impressed upon our minds with fresh force; namely, that we often draw the lines of demarcation too broad between those whom we are pleased to divide into the civilized and the savage. Israelite and heathen, Grecian and barbarian, Roman and pagan, enlightened and benighted, saintly and sinful, are fine distinctions from the Hebrew, Greek, Roman, enlightened, and saintly sides of the question; but they often reflect small credit upon the wisdom and generosity of their authors. The antipodal Eramangan who cleaves to his moon image for protection may be quite equal, both intellectually and morally, with the Anglo-Saxon who still wears his amulet to ward off disease, or nails up his horse-shoe, as Nelson did to the mast of the _Victory_, as a guarantee of good luck. Sir George Grey has written: "It must be borne in mind, that the native races, who believed in these traditions or superst.i.tions, are in no way deficient in intellect, and in no respect incapable of receiving the truths of Christianity; on the contrary, they readily embrace its doctrines and submit to its rules; in our schools they stand a fair comparison with Europeans; and, when instructed in Christian truths, blush at their own former ignorance and superst.i.tions, and look back with shame and loathing upon their previous state of wickedness and credulity."

[243]

IV. THE MOON A WATER-DEITY.

We design this chapter to be the completion of moon-wors.h.i.+p, and at the same time an antic.i.p.ation of those lunary superst.i.tions which are but scattered leaves from luniolatry, the parent tree. If the new moon, with its waxing light, may represent the primitive nature-wors.h.i.+p which spread over the earth; and the full moon, the deity who is supposed to regulate our reservoirs and supplies of water: the waning moon may fitly typify the grotesque and sickly superst.i.tion, which, under the progress of radiant science and spiritual religion, is readier every hour to vanish away.

"The name Astarte was variously identified with the moon, as distinguished from the sun, or with air and water, as opposed in their qualities to fire. The name of this G.o.ddess represented to the wors.h.i.+pper the great female parent of all animated things, variously conceived of as the moon, the earth, the watery element, primeval night, the eldest of the destinies." [244] It is worthy of note that Van Helmont, in the seventeenth century, holds similar language. His words are, "The moon is chief over the night darkness, rest, death, and the waters." [245] It is also remarkable that in the language of the Algonquins of North America the ideas of night, death, cold, sleep, water, and moon are expressed by one and the same word.

[246] In the oriental mythology "the connection between the moon and water suggests the idea that the moon produces fertility and freshness in the soil." [247] "Al Zamakhshari, the commentator on the Koran, derives _Manah_ (one of the three idols wors.h.i.+pped by the Arabs before the time of Mohammad) from the root 'to flow,'

because of the blood which flowed at the sacrifices to this idol, or, as Millius explains it, because the ancient idea of the moon was that it was a star full of moisture, with which it filled the sublunary regions." [248] The Persians held that the moon was the cause of an abundant supply of water and of rain, and therefore the names of the most fruitful places in Persia are compounded with the word _mah_, "moon"; "for in the opinion of the Iranians the growth of plants depends on the influence of the moon." [249] In India "the moon is generally a male, for its most popular names, _Candras_, _Indus_, and _Somas_, are masculine; but as Somas signifies ambrosia, the moon, as giver of ambrosia, soon came to be considered a milk-giving cow; in fact, moon is one among the various meanings given in Sanskrit to the word Gaus (cow). The moon, Somas, who illumines the nocturnal sky, and the pluvial sun, Indras, who during the night, or the winter, prepares the light of morn, or spring, are represented as companions; a young girl, the evening, or autumnal twilight, who goes to draw water towards night, or winter, finds in the well, and takes to Indras, the ambrosial moon, that is, the Somas whom he loves. Here are the very words of the Vedic hymn: 'The young girl, descending towards the water, found the moon in the fountain, and said: I will take you to Indras, I will take you to cakras; flow, O moon, and envelop Indras.'" [250] Here in India we again find our old friend "the frog in the moon." "It is especially Indus who satisfies the frog's desire for rain. Indus, as the moon, brings or announces the Somas, or the rain; the frog, croaking, announces or brings the rain; and at this point the frog, which we have seen identified at first with the cloud, is also identified with the pluvial moon." [251] This myth is not lacking in involution.

In China "the moon is regarded as chief and director of everything subject in the kosmic system to the Yin [feminine] principle, such as darkness, the earth, female creatures, water, etc. Thus Pao P'ah Tsze declares with reference to the tides: 'The vital essence of the moon governs water: and hence, when the moon is at its brightest, the tides are high.'" [252] According to the j.a.panese fairy tale the moon was to "rule over the new-born earth and the blue waste of the sea, with its mult.i.tudinous salt waters." [253] Thus we see that throughout Asia, "as lord of moisture and humidity, the moon is connected with growth and the nurturing power of the peaceful night." [254]

Of the kindred of the Pharaohs, Plutarch observes: "The sun and moon were described by the Egyptians as sailing round the world in boats, intimating that these bodies owe their power of moving, as well as their support and nourishment, to the principle of humidity"

(Plut. de Isid. s. 34): which statement Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson says is confirmed by the sculptures. The moon-G.o.d Khons bears in his hands either a palm-branch or "the Nilometer." When the Egyptians sacrificed a pig to the moon, "the first sacred emblem they carried was a _hydria_, or water-pitcher." At another festival the Egyptians "marched in procession towards the sea-side, whither likewise the priests and other proper officers carried the sacred chest, inclosing a small boat or vessel of gold, into which they first poured some fresh water; and then all present cried out with a loud voice 'Osiris is found.' This ceremony being ended, they threw a little fresh mould, together with rich odours and spices, into the water, mixing the whole ma.s.s together, and working it up into a little image in the shape of a crescent. The image was afterwards dressed and adorned with a proper habit, and the whole was intended to intimate that they looked upon these G.o.ds as the essence and power of earth and water." [255]

The Austro-Hungarians have a man in the moon who is a sort of aquarius. Grimm says: "Water, an essential part of the Norse myth, is wanting in the story of the man with the thorn bush, but it reappears in the Carniolan story cited in Bretano's Libussa (p. 421): the man in the moon is called Kotar, he makes her grow by pouring water." [256] The Scandinavian legend, distilled into Jack and Jill, is, as we have seen, an embodiment of early European belief that the ebb and flow of the tides were dependent upon the motions and mutations of the moon.

We find the same notion prevailing in the western hemisphere. "As the MOON is a.s.sociated with the dampness and dews of night, an ancient and widespread myth identified her with the G.o.ddess of water. Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in the words of an old author, 'great observers of the weather by the moon.' They looked upon her, not only as forewarning them by her appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual cause. Isis, her Egyptian t.i.tle, literally means moisture; Ataensic, whom the Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec theology." [257] One of the G.o.ds of the Dakotahs was "Unk-ta-he (G.o.d of the water). The Dakotahs say that this G.o.d and its a.s.sociates are seen in their dreams. It is the master-spirit of all their juggling and superst.i.tious belief, From it the medicine men obtain their supernatural powers, and a great part of their religion springs from this G.o.d." [258]

Brinton also says of this large Indian nation, "that Muktahe, spirit of water, is the master of dreams and witchcraft, is the belief of the Dakotahs." [259] We know that the Dakotahs wors.h.i.+pped the moon, and therefore see no difficulty in identifying that divinity with their G.o.d of dreams and water. "In the legend of the Muyscas it is Chia, the moon, who was also G.o.ddess of water and flooded the earth out of spite." [260] In this myth the moon is a malevolent deity, and water, usually a symbol of life, becomes an agency of death.

Reactions are constantly occurring in the myth-making process. The G.o.d is male or female, good or evil, angry or amiable, according to the season or climate, the aspect of nature or the mood of the people. "In hot countries," says Sir John Lubbock, "the sun is generally regarded as an evil, and in cold as a beneficent being."

[261] We are willing to accept this, with allowance. There is little question that taking men as a whole they are mainly optimistic in their judgments respecting the gifts of earth and the glories of heaven. Mr. Brinton, in reference to the imagined destructiveness of the water deity, writes: "Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is here disclosed. As the good qualities of water were attributed to the G.o.ddess of night, sleep, and death, so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back on this element.

Taking, however, American religions as a whole, water is far more frequently represented as producing beneficent effects than the reverse." [262]

"The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of agriculture, and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the G.o.d of rains, Quiateot, rose in the east, thus hinting how this connection originated." [263] "The Muyscas of the high plains of Bogota were once, they said, savages without agriculture, religion, or law; but there came to them from the east an old and bearded man, Bochica, the child of the sun, and he taught them to till the fields, to clothe themselves, to wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds, to become a nation. But Bochica had a wicked, beautiful wife, Huythaca, who loved to spite and spoil her husband's work; and she it was who made the river swell till the land was covered by a flood, and but a few of mankind escaped upon the mountain tops. Then Bochica was wroth, and he drove the wicked Huythaca from the earth, and made her the moon, for there had been no moon before; and he cleft the rocks and made the mighty cataract of Tequendama, to let the deluge flow away. Then, when the land was dry, he gave to the remnant of mankind the year and its periodic sacrifices, and the wors.h.i.+p of the sun. Now the people who told this myth had not forgotten, what indeed we might guess without their help, that Bochica was himself Zuhe, the sun, and Huytheca, the sun's wife, the moon." [264] This interesting and instructive legend, to which we alluded before in a brief quotation from Mr. Brinton, is worthy of reproduction in its fuller form, and fitly concludes our moon mythology and wors.h.i.+p, as it presents a synoptical view of the chief points to which our attention has been turned. It shows us primitive or primeval man, the dawn of civilization, the daybreak of religion, the upgrowth of national life. In its solar husband and lunar wife it embraces that anthropomorphism and s.e.xuality which we think have been and still are the princ.i.p.al factors in the production of legendary and religious impersonations. It includes that dualism which is one of man's oldest attempts to account for the opposition of good and evil. And finally it predicts a new humanity, springing from a remnant of the old; and a progress of brighter years, when, the deluge having disappeared, the dry land shall be fruitful in every good; when men shall wors.h.i.+p the Father of lights, and "G.o.d shall be all in all."

[*] For further information on the universality of moon-wors.h.i.+p, see _The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the Known World_, by Bernard Picart. London: 1734, folio, vol. iii.

MOON SUPERSt.i.tIONS.

I. INTRODUCTION.

Superst.i.tion may be defined as an extravagance of faith and fear: not what Ecclesiastes calls being "righteous overmuch," but religious reverence in excess. Some etymologists say that the word originally meant a "_standing_ still _over_ or by a thing" in fear, wonder, or dread. [265] Brewer's definition is rather more cla.s.sical: "That which survives when its companions are dead (Latin, _supersto_). Those who escaped in battle were called _superst.i.tes_.

Superst.i.tion is that religion which remains when real religion is dead; that fear and awe and wors.h.i.+p paid to the religious impression which survives in the mind when correct notions of Deity no longer exist." [266] Hooker says that superst.i.tion "is always joined with a wrong opinion touching things divine. Superst.i.tion is, when things are either abhorred or observed with a zealous or fearful, but erroneous relation to G.o.d. By means whereof the superst.i.tious do sometimes serve, though the true G.o.d, yet with needless offices, and defraud Him of duties necessary; sometimes load others than Him with such honours as properly are His." [267] A Bampton Lecturer on this subject says: "Superst.i.tion is an _unreasonable belief_ of that which is mistaken for truth concerning the nature of G.o.d and the invisible world, our relations to these unseen objects, and the duties which spring out of those relations." [268]

We may next briefly inquire into the origin of the thing, which, of course, is older than the word. Burton will help us to an easy answer. He tells us that "the _primum mobile_, and first mover of all superst.i.tion, is the devil, that great enemy of mankind, the princ.i.p.al agent, who in a thousand several shapes, after divers fas.h.i.+ons, with several engines, illusions, and by several names, hath deceived the inhabitants of the earth, in several places and countries, still rejoicing at their falls." [269] Verily this protean, omnipresent, and malignant devil has proved himself a great convenience! He has been the scapegoat upon whom we have laid the responsibility of all our mortal woe: and now we learn that to his infernal influence we are indebted for our ignorance and superst.i.tion. Henceforth, when we are at our wit's end, we may apostrophize the difficulty, and exclaim, "O thou invisible spirit, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!" We hesitate to spoil this serviceable illusion: for as we have known some good people, of a sort, who would be distressed to find that there was no h.e.l.l to burn up the opponents of their orthodoxy; we fear lest many would be disappointed if they found out that the infernal spirit was not at the bottom of our abysmal ignorance. But we will give even the devil his due. We are not like Sir William Brown, who "could never bring himself heartily to hate the devil." We can, wherever we find him; but we think it only honest to father our own mental deficiencies, as well as our moral delinquencies, and instead of seeking a subst.i.tute to use the available remedy. "To err is human"; and it is in humanity itself that we shall discover the source of superst.i.tion. We are the descendants of ancestors who were the children of the world, and we were ourselves children not so long ago. Childhood is the age of fancy and fiction; of sensitiveness to outer influences; of impressions of things as they seem, not as they are. When we become men we put away childish things; and in the manhood of our race we shall banish many of the idols and ideas which please us while we grow. Darwin has told us that our "judgment will not rarely err from ignorance and weak powers of reasoning. Hence the strangest customs and superst.i.tions, in complete opposition to the true welfare and happiness of mankind, have become all-powerful throughout the world. How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the mind of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, whilst the brain is impressible, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason." [270]

But if superst.i.tion be the result of imperfection, there is no gainsaying the fact that it is productive of infinite evil; and on this account it has been attributed to a diabolical paternity. Bacon even affirms that "it were better to have no opinion of G.o.d at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superst.i.tion is the reproach of the Deity." [271] Most heartily do we hold with Dr. Thomas Browne: "It is not enough to believe in G.o.d as an irresistible power that presides over the universe; for this a malignant demon might be. It is necessary for our devout happiness that we should believe in Him as that pure and gracious Being who is the encourager of our virtues and the comforter of our sorrows.

Quantum religio potuit suadere malorum,

exclaims the Epicurean poet, in thinking of the evils which superst.i.tion, characterized by that ambiguous name, had produced; and where a fierce or gloomy superst.i.tion has usurped the influence which religion graciously exercises only for purposes of benevolence to man, whom she makes happy with a present enjoyment, by the very expression of devout grat.i.tude for happiness already enjoyed, it would not be easy to estimate the amount of positive misery which must result from the mere contemplation of a tyrant in the heavens, and of a creation subject to his cruelty and caprice." [272] The above quoted line from Lucretius--To such evils could religion persuade!--is more than the exclamation of righteous indignation against the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father, Agamemnon, at the bidding of a priest, to propitiate a G.o.ddess. It is still further applicable to the long chain of outrageous wrongs which have been inflicted upon the innocent at the instigation of a stupid and savage fanaticism. What is worst of all, much of this bloodthirsty religion has claimed a commission from the G.o.d of love, and performed its detestable deeds in the insulted name of that "soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit," whom the loftiest and best of men delight to adore as the Prince of peace. No wonder that Voltaire cried out, "Christian religion, behold thy consequences!" if he could calculate that ten million lives had been immolated on the altar of a spurious Christianity. One hundred thousand were slain in the Bartholomew ma.s.sacre alone. Righteousness, peace, and love were not the monster which Voltaire laboured to crush: he was most intensely incensed against the blind and bigoted priesthood, against the malicious and murderous servants who ate the bread of a holy and harmless Master, against "their intolerance of light and hatred of knowledge, their fierce yet profoundly contemptible struggles with one another, the scandals of their casuistry, their besotted cruelty."

[273] We have been betrayed into speaking thus strongly of the extreme lengths to which superst.i.tion will carry those who yield themselves to its ruthless tyranny. But perhaps we have not gone far from our subject, after all; for the innocent Iphigenia, whose doom kindled our ire, was sacrificed to the G.o.ddess of the moon.

II. LUNAR FANCIES.

There are a few phosph.o.r.escent fancies about the moon, like _ignes fatui_,

"Dancing in murky night o'er fen and lake,"

which we may dispose of in a section by themselves. Those of them that are mythical are too evanescent to become full-grown myths; and those which are religious are too volatile to remain in the solution or salt of any bottled creed. Like the wandering lights of the Russians, answering to our will-o'-the-wisp, they are the souls of still-born children. There is, for example, the insubstantial and formless but pleasing conception of the Indian Veda. In the Ramayanam the moon is a good fairy, who in giving light in the night a.s.sumes a benignant aspect and succours the dawn. In the Vedic hymn, Raka, the full moon, is exhorted to sew the work with a needle which cannot be broken. Here the moon is personified as preparing during the night her luminous garments, one for the evening, the other for the morning, the one lunar and of silver, the other solar and of gold. [274] Another notion, equally airy but more religious, has sprung up in Christian times and in Catholic countries.

It is that heathen fancy which connects the moon with the Virgin Mary. Abundant evidence of this a.s.sociation in the minds of Roman Catholics is furnished by the style of the ornaments which crowd the continental churches. One of the most conspicuous is the sun and moon in conjunction, precisely as they are represented on Babylonian and Grecian coins; and the identification of the Virgin and her Child with the moon any Roman Catholic cathedral will show. [275] The _Roman Missal_ will present to any reader "Sancta Maria, coeli Regina, et mundi Domina"; the _Glories of Mary_ will exhibit her as the omnipotent mother, Queen of the Universe; and Ecclesiastical History will declare how, as early as the close of the fourth century, the women who were called Collyridians wors.h.i.+pped her "as a G.o.ddess, and judged it necessary to appease her anger, and seek her favour and protection, by libations, sacrifices, and oblations of cakes (_collyridae_)." [276] This is but a repet.i.tion of the women kneading dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven, as recorded by Jeremiah; and proves that the relative position occupied by Astarte in company with Baal, Juno with Jupiter, Doorga with Brahma, and Ma-tsoo-po with Boodh, is that occupied by Mary with G.o.d. Nay more, she is "Mater Creatoris"

and "Dei Genetrix": Mother of the Creator, Mother of G.o.d. Having thus been enthroned in the position in the universal pantheon which was once occupied by the moon, what wonder that the ignorant devotee should see her in that orb, especially as the sun, moon, and stars of the Apocalypse are her chief symbols. Southey has recorded a good ill.u.s.tration of this superst.i.tious fancy. "A fine circ.u.mstance occurred in the s.h.i.+pwreck of the _Santiago_, 1585. The s.h.i.+p struck in the night; the wretched crew had been confessing, singing litanies, etc., and this they continued till, about two hours before break of day, the moon arose beautiful and exceeding bright; and forasmuch as till that time they had been in such darkness that they could scarcely sec one another when close at hand, such was the stir among them at beholding the brightness and glory of that orb, that most part of the crew began to lift up their voices, and with tears, cries, and groans called upon Our Lady, saying they saw her in the moon." [277]

The preceding fancies would produce upon the poetic and religious sense only an agreeable effect. Other hallucinations have wrought effects of an opposite kind. The face in the moon does not always wear an amiable aspect, and it is not unnatural that those who have been taught to believe in angry G.o.ds and frowning providences should see the caricatures of their false teachers reproduced in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. We are reminded here of the magic mirror mentioned by Bayle. There is a trick, invented by Pythagoras, which is performed in the following manner. The moon being at the full, some one writes with blood on a looking-gla.s.s anything he has a mind to; and having given notice of it to another person, he stands behind that other and turns towards the moon the letters written in the gla.s.s. The other looking fixedly on the s.h.i.+ning orb reads in it all that is written on the mirror as if it were written on the moon. [278] This is precisely the _modus operandi_ by which the knavish have imposed upon the foolish in all ages. The manipulator of the doctrine stands behind his credulous disciple, writing out of sight his invented science or theology, and writing too often with the blood of some innocent victim. The poor patient student is meanwhile gazing on the moon in dreamy devotion; until as the writing on the mirror is read with solemn intonation, it all appears before his moon-struck gaze as a heavenly revelation. Woe to the truth-loving critic who breaks the enchantment and the mirror, crying out in the vernacular tongue, Your mysteries are myths, your writings are frauds; and the fair moon is innocent of the lying imposition!

To mult.i.tudes the moon has always been an object of terror and dread. Not only is it a supramundane and magnified man--that it will always be while its spots are so anthropoid, and man himself is so anthropomorphic--but it has ever been, and still is, a being of maleficent and misanthropic disposition. As Mr. Tylor says, "When the Aleutians thought that if any one gave offence to the moon, he would fling down stones on the offender and kill him; or when the moon came down to an Indian squaw, appearing in the form of a beautiful woman with a child in her arms, and demanding an offering of tobacco and fur-robes: what conceptions of personal life could be more distinct than these?" [279] Personal and distinct, indeed, but far from pleasant. Another author tells us that "in some parts of Scotland to point at the stars or to do aught that might be considered an indignity in the face of the sun or moon, is still to be dreaded and avoided; so also it was not long since, probably still is, in Devons.h.i.+re and Cornwall. The Jews seem to have been equally superst.i.tious on this point (Jer. viii. 1, 2), and the Persians believed leprosy to be an infliction on those who had committed some offence against the sun." [280] Southey supplies us with an ill.u.s.tration of the moon in a fit of dudgeon. He is describing the sufferings of poor Hans Stade, when he was caught by the Tupinambas and expected that he was about to die. "The moon was up, and fixing his eyes upon her, he silently besought G.o.d to vouchsafe him a happy termination of these sufferings. Yeppipo Wasu, who was one of the chiefs of the horde, and as such had convoked the meeting, seeing how earnestly he kept gazing upwards, asked him what he was looking at. Hans had ceased from praying, and was observing the man in the moon, and fancying that he looked angry; his mind was broken down by continual terror, and he says it seemed to him at that moment as if he were hated by G.o.d, and by all things which G.o.d had created. The question only half roused him from this phantasy, and he answered, it was plain that the moon was angry. The savage asked whom she was angry with, and then Hans, as if he had recollected himself, replied that she was looking at his dwelling. This enraged him, and Hans found it prudent to say that perhaps her eyes were turned so wrathfully upon the Carios; in which opinion the chief a.s.sented, and wished she might destroy them all." [281] Some such superst.i.tious fear must have furnished the warp into which the following Icelandic story was woven. "There was once a sheep-stealer who sat down in a lonely place, with a leg of mutton in his hand, in order to feast upon it, for he had just stolen it. The moon shone bright and clear, not a single cloud being there in heaven to hide her. While enjoying his gay feast, the impudent thief cut a piece off the meat, and, putting it on the point of his knife, accosted the moon with these G.o.dless words:--

'O moon, wilt thou On thy mouth now This dainty bit of mutton-meat?'

Then a voice came from the heavens, saying:--

'Wouldst thou, thief, like Thy cheek to strike This fair key, scorching-red with heat?'

At the same moment, a red-hot key fell from the sky on to the cheek of the thief, burning on it a mark which he carried with him ever afterwards. Hence arose the custom in ancient times of branding or marking thieves." [282] The moral influence of this tale is excellent, and has the cordial admiration of all who hate robbery and effrontery: at the same time it exhibits the moon as an irascible body, with which no liberty may be taken. In short, it is an object of superst.i.tious awe.

One other lunar fancy, born and bred in fear, is connected with the abominable superst.i.tion of witchcraft. Abominable, unquestionably, the evil was; but justice compels us to add that the remedy of relentless and ruthless persecution with which it was sought to remove the pest was a reign of abhorrent and atrocious cruelty. Into the question itself we dare not enter, lest we should be ourselves bewitched. We know that divination by supposed supernatural agency existed among the Hebrews, that magical incantations were practised among the Greeks and Romans, and that more modern witchcraft has been contemporaneous with the progress of Christianity. But we must dismiss the subject in one borrowed sentence. "The main source from which we derived this superst.i.tion is the East, and traditions and facts incorporated in our religion.

There were only wanted the ferment of thought of the fifteenth century, the energy, ignorance, enthusiasm, and faith of those days, and the papal denunciation of witchcraft by the bull of Innocent the Eighth, in 1459, to give fury to the delusion. And from this time, for three centuries, the flames at which more than a hundred thousand victims perished cast a lurid light over Europe." [283] The singular notion, which we wish to present, is the ancient belief that witches could control the moon. In the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes, Strepsiades tells Socrates that he has "a notion calculated to deprive of interest"; which is as follows:--

"_Str_. If I were to buy a Thessalian witch, and draw down the moon by night, then shut her up in a round helmet-case, like a mirror, and then keep watching her--"

"_Soc_. What good would that do you, then?"

"_Str_. What? If the moon were not to rise any more anywhere, I should not pay the interest."

"_Soc_. Because what?"

"_Str_. Because the money is lent by the month." [284]

Shakespeare alludes to this, where Prospero says, "His mother was a witch, and one so strong that could control the moon" (_Tempest_, Act v.).

If the witch's broom, on whose stick she rode to the moon, be a type of the wind, we may guess how the fancy grew up that the airy creation could control those atmospheric vapours on which the light and humidity of the night were supposed to depend. [285]

III. LUNAR ECLIPSES.

All round the globe, from time immemorial, those periodic phenomena known as solar and lunar eclipses have been occasions of mental disquietude and superst.i.tious alarm. Though now regarded as perfectly natural and regular, they have seemed so preternatural and irregular to the unscientific eye that we cannot wonder at the consternation which they have caused. And it must be confessed that a total obscuration of the sun in the middle of the day casts such a gloom over the earth that men not usually timid are still excusable if during the parenthesis they feel a temporary uneasiness, and are relieved when the ruler of the day emerges from his dark chamber, apparently rejoicing to renew his race. An eclipse of the moon, though less awe-inspiring, is nevertheless sufficiently so to awaken in the superst.i.tious brain fearful forebodings of impending calamity. Science may demonstrate that there is nothing abnormal in these occurrences, but to the seeker after signs it wilt be throwing words away; for, as Lord Kames says, "Superst.i.tious eyes are never opened by instruction."

We will now produce a number of testimonies to show how these lunar eclipses have been viewed among the various races of the earth in ancient and modern times. The Chaldaeans were careful observers of eclipses, and Berosus believed that when the moon was obscured she turned to us her dark side. Anaximenes said that her mouth was stopped. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Mathematicians said that she fell into conjunction with the bright sun. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (born B.C. 499) was the first to explain the eclipse of the moon as caused by the shadow of the earth cast by the sun. But he was as one born out of due time. We are all familiar with the use made by students of unfulfilled prophecy of every extraordinary occurrence in nature, such as the sudden appearance of a comet, an earthquake, an eclipse, etc. We know how mysteriously they interpret those simple pa.s.sages in the Bible about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood.

If they were not wilfully blind, such facts as are established by the following quotations would open their eyes to the errors in their exegesis. At any rate, they would find their theories antic.i.p.ated in nearly every particular by those very heathen whom they are wont to pity as so benighted and hopelessly lost.