Forlong - Rivers of Life

172
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
their Iakos. It was the bark of the beech and the birch which contained all the
wisdom of ancient Europe; and what in modern Latin is called liber, the Skands
and Kelts called Bed or Bec,—and the Sanskrit Aryans their Ved, or what enlightens
them. The Irish called their letters by the names of trees. Only the youth who had
come of age could have or use this liber or liberty, and the god was therefore called the
Liber-Pater of all who had just come of age, and joyous were the fêtes with which he
welcomed his children. Latterly his Bacchanalia became so gross, that the good sense
of the Roman people put these down; this happened in 185 B.C., but the Liberalia
continued under considerable restrictions, though not sevcre enough, for we find St.
Augustin describing the licentiousness of the festival, as in his day (400 A.C.) something
very bad indeed. But this seems inherent to the season of the vernal equinox,
when animal life in all lands responds, perhaps too demonstratively to please our civilisation
and sense of what is proper.
Wherever people were unahle to engrave on stone, they scratched or cut,
especially on their most holy trees, all that they desired to express to those following
after them, or to show off' their feelings or learning; and this spirit may have induced
the Jews, as time wore on, to so engrave the stones which had at first only found a
place in their arks, as the bull and serpent still finds a place at present in temples
representing the energies of creation. One may often witness strange inscriptions on
prominent or holy tree-stems, when travelling through the wilds of aboriginal or very
rude tribes, as well in Barma as in India.
I always expected to find that the Libra or Balance, and its accessories—
which we are told were kept so reverently in the
temple of Saturn at Rome—had a Phallic meaning;
and this we see is the case in this beautiful
design of “a steelyard” or statera, which J. Y.
gives us in Smith’s Classical Dictionary under
the head Trutina, a word signifying both Libra
and a balance or “weighing-yard.” The last
word reminds us that before it came to
signify a specific measure, it signified a baton
Fig. 63.—THE BALANCE, OR STATERA
OF THE CAPITOL
or rod (as that of Moses or Hermes, &c.),
and was pronounced in Old Saxon, gerd or
gyrd; in Dutch, gard; C. Gothic, gazd or goad—that is “a thorn stick” or
“enlivener;” in Icel. it is a gaddr, a “club,” and closely related to gardr; Gothic,
gards and “garden” a private place or yard around a house, accessible only to the
family; Heb. Gan, as in Gan-Eden. From the term Trutina we can get only the idea
of “a great pair of weights, one good in judgement,” &c., but from its equivalent in
Hebrew, slp, we get back to the old idea of the “divider,” “tearer,” or “cutter
asunder, that which breaks through, as lightning does the clouds” (Furst); also “Making