Forlong - Rivers of Life

60
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
of the River of Life there will grow the tree of Life, which yicldcth her fruit every
month, for the Palm was held to be Solar in respect to marking every month, by
putting forth a new shoot, and at the Winter Solstice fêtes, it was shown with
twelve shoots.
At the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, which is in consequence of the Autumnal
Equinox and harvest, Jews are ordered to hang boughs of trees laden with fruit—
as oranges and lemons, round the borders of their tents or booths, not over them;
also boughs of barren trees, and when the worshippers go to the synagogue, they are
told to carry in their right hand one palm branch, three myrtle, and two willows, all
tied up together; and in the left hand a citron branch with fruit on it; the palms and
citrons are severely Phallic and are here indispensable. These they make to touch each
other, and wave to the east, then south, then west and north: this was termed Hosana.
On the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, aIl save the willow bough must be
laid aside. Of course the sarne fetes would be observed at Pentecost, in the end of
Yiar—the second month, as in Niasan the first month, for this last was merelv the
end, as the other was the beginning of the harvest, which lastcd over the fifty
days as Pentecost implies. Plutarch says that the Jews also carried about javelins
wrapped round with Ivy—qÚrsoj—as at the worship of Bacchus, usually shouting “Hozanoth.”
Great libations of wine and water from the Shiloah river, were then brought
and poured over the altar of the temple. Of the shouting we shall have much to say
hereafter; Germany, ever fond of its old Tree-worship, is said to have introduced this
into the Jewish synagogues of Germany, but this I doubt. Buxtorf says that there
are two very sacred sticks attached to ‘the book of the Law’ called “the Wood of
Life;” and after the reading is over all press forward to touch, with but the tips of two
fingers, these two “Sacred sticks,” with which they then touch their eyes; for
this touch cures sore eyes and bad vision, and “is of singular service to all women
labouring with child.” These matters recall to memory sundry rites in Sivaik lore
which this is not the place to dwell on.
Many early Christian writers, as well as the Koran, tell us that the weary persecuted
Virgin mother-to-be of “the Almighty God of all worlds,” sat down faint and perishing
under the root of a withered Palm-tree, without head or verdure, and in the
wintry season, where at the command of the fœtal child, she shook the tree (a difficult
task for the strongest man in the case of a a “withered Palm,” and unnecessary, one
would think, in this case) when down fell ripe dates in abundance, for Gabriel “revived
the dry trunk, and it shot forth green leaves and a head laden with ripe fruit.”
(Koran, i. 63, ii. 130). The so-called spurious gospels have many similar tales, and
those of the canonical writings have wonders no less strange in their, “incarnation,” &c.
The Palm of Delos (“Palladis Arbore Palmæ”) was sacred to the second person
of the Trinity, and all the Jewish temple was adorned alternately with cherubim and
Palms; Christian writers make Christ be ushered in to the sacred AkropoIls with