Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
intend to place before the public, more espcially if we wish to inspire an enduring
reverence, awe and worship, with tragic interludes. This stupendous, dark, and
frowning mountain, with its strangem weird, rocky cleft and holy water, was enough to
establish any shrine; but when, as here, the spring in the gaping cleft; was not only
thermal but sulphureous, then, indeed, was it “nature’s own door,” the “holy of
holies;” which the Greek esteemed this Pythic fount. It had, however, many other
symbolic and awe-inspiring features, as the two great East and West masses, which
hung imaginatively over it like huge bosses, cheeks, or bosoms. Asiatics, or indeed
any careful observers of faiths and their sanctuaries in, the East, can generally tell at a
glance, from the topographical features of a hill or holy place, to which god the
shrine belongs. I have never experienced any difficulty in doing this long before I
reached the shrine, and even in cases where I knew nothing of the cult of the temple I was
being led to see. The formation of the rocls, a favourable bend of the rivulet or river,
the disposition and shape of the hills, will generally proclaim to him who studies the
faiths of men in whose “awful presence” he stands. Thus I at once saw Siva or
Apollo on approaching Delphi, and Palas between the Sabine and Etruscan Mounts,
where Tiber bends his, or rather her stream; for he was sacred, no doubt, to yonder
Albulan nymph of sulphureous breath, who dwells in that pretty retreat at Tivoli, regarding
which much will be said in its place.
When visiting Delphi, now many years ago, I was not so conversant with my subject,
and especially hazy in regard to Solar Shrines, of which we have but few living specimens
now in the East, and none purely Solar; so that on approaching the “resplendent
cliffs” with their caves and monastic buildings, I was at a loss as to the deity until I
saw the cleft and Kastalian fount. Still there were no poles with the usual serpent
streamers, though the cleft and well soon made me feel whose presence had been here
supreme. The gods were, however, suffering grievously from neglect and loneliness; no
bell, nor chaunt, nor even a shed, welcomed the weary pilgrim; no well-trod, sweet,
shady nook was here where he could sit and worship his god, as we are so well
accustomed to meet with in the East.
How had the mighty fallen! Yet not by reason of the faith now dominant in
Europe, but before the marshalled hosts of advancing intelligence, which the Academic
groves of Greece, and the suburban villas of Rome so freely gave forth. Though Asia
and Africa, nay, all earth, once owned the sway of the faith which had ruled here;
yes, and in a manner which neither they nor any great nations of men ever will
again so absolutely own; though poet and pietist for thousands of years had never
wearied of singing and hymning the glories of the deities of the triple or, perhaps, we
may say quadruple faith 1 of Delphi—and none did this more than the people of the
coasts of this central sea, and the sweet isles of Greece—yea, in due time, Delphi’s
end too had come; and as all earth-born things must die, it too passed away as a
1 All the five streams of Faiths were here, though the first Tree is almost undiscoverable.