Forlong - Rivers of Life

74
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
teries”—we see how the most learned Christians fight about transubsantiation and
consubstantiation, and openly aver that neither their words nor arguments are to be
taken according to the reasonable and grammatical meaning which the outside and unregenerate
world affixes to these; they assert that “the real presence” is in the bread and
wine, and yet is not, and that no one knows how or when it got there; in fact there is a
considerable muddle, which yet we are to receive, and try and swallow with what
faith “the Lord only can grant to us;” and so it is with Hindoo mysteries, as the
orthodox have often told me, when hard pressed to dry and logical conclusions. Some
say that the tree pierces the skies, of which Juno (IOni) is the representative, and
that hence its flowers and fruits, which it culls from the rich abudance of the heavens;
others, that the dews which nightly suffuse its leaves and branches are the “overshadowings”
of great Dius or Indra who thus becomes. the Greek Ouranos, and the
earth the Ge or female energy; this is, I think, the real Asiatic idea, for the Greeks
learned their lore in Asia and they are never tired. of their Ge and Ouranos idea, and
this is the moat usual Indian notion by those few priests who know anything of the
subject. Perhaps a compromise is possible by saying that the Pillar or Stem is Jove,
whilst Ge and Juno is mundane matter and moisture, acting and reacting on the fruityielding
mass; anyhow the whole is “a thing of beauty,” and was for long long ages a
veritable god. The Cross Idea probably followed at a very remote interval the Phallic
and 8erpent symbolism, but rapidly on the Cross, came semi-spiritual notions, which
crystallised themselves eventually, and then concreted with other matter into such forms
or names as the KaIdian “Memra,” the Greek “Logos”—the “Divine Wisdom” or
“Word,” which existed, it was averred “from the beginning with the Father.” This
wisdom was heard no less amidst the thunderings on desert monntains and the oaks
of Dodona than “among the branches of the Tree of Life in the Paradise of Osiris.” for
Egyptians held, that from her seat on her sylvan throne, Netpe, “the goddess of divine
life,” there proclaimed the will of Heaven. It was she of Saïs and she of “a thousand
lights” who sat there, and it is her lights which Jews and Christians have carried
down to the presemt day and set up in their altar candlesticks; and it is her “tree of
lights” and good gifts which they still symbolise in Christmas-trees at the winter
solstice: True, we here have it from Germany, but it originally came from the Nile
or from the furthest east, where it is now, though in a somewhat different way,
vigorously maintained.
The identity of the Tree and Cross ia often to he observed in Christian literature—
sometimes the terms are interchangeable. Thus in the tenth chapter of the Acts of
the Apostles, Peter, speaking of Jesus, says, “whom they slew and hanged on a tree.”
The tree of knowledge represents the life of the soul or spiritual life. The “tree
of life,” or he who gives life and supplies food, which is the true old meaning of the
word Lord, represeents the physical life, or the life of the body. It is said that in
Egypt the Pyramid has the same mythologicnl meaning as the tree, but I rather think