Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
away so much of ancient lore. It was they, as far as we can at present see, who effaced
public Phallic Worship from our European Continent; for history, before which we
must all bow, not only does not give that honour to the Christian Church, but shows
that the mitred head—the great representative of Christ on earth—bowed humbly
and devoutly before these Fanes, bearing patiently, for the sake of Rome’s old Faith. the
calumny and martyrdom which such a falling away from the Christianity he professed
must have entailed upon him.
The new religion wished not that Fire should be banished from the altars of
Europe; and no Atila with Gothic hordes from its central forests, or Alaric with his
Vandals from Spain and Africa, could completely efface this ancient worship. Christianity
herself received it in fondest embrace, and no altar to the holy iconoclastic
Jesus (for about 1500 years after he had preached his pure and simple faith, embodied
in the two good old commandments to love God and our neighbours) could be reared,
until the sacred fire shone on the Virgin mother and Holy Son; nor could any ceremony
be sacred without it or its symbols; nay, to the present hour, does not every
chapel consecrated to the rich Christian dead show on the altar or grave the sacred
ever-burning spirit of this God? Even Protestant Europe, which tried to banish it
from her altars, has been long seeking to win it back again, while the whole Church of
England is at this day in convulsions, threatening her utter dismemberment, because
of that party who seek (and hitherto with considerable success) to see the old God once
more on their holy places. I of course allude to altar candles, which graphically represent
column, obelisk, and fire, all of which seem to have been symbols of man’s Faith
before Vedas or Zendavestas were heard of, and which promise to outlive even these.
Nor indeed are we yet entirely free from the elder brother of this Faith. The
sacred Navis, Nave, Boat, or Ark, is still the prescribed form of the Roman Catholic,
English, and Continental Protestant Churches; all these and the worshippers must
still turn to the old male Sun-god, to Chammah or Shemesh, Samson, El, and Jah, of
old Kaldaic days, the powerful, fruitful Creator of all things, called Baal, Shaddai,
Mithra, and a thousand other names.
Even in this land from which (1871) I write, and which is so full of the older
faiths, rites and ceremonies, we find Protestantism still trying to compete with them
in the use of their old symbolism. An Indian journal, of September 1871, thus recounts
to us with congratulatory fervour the celebration of a marrriage in the “Church of the
Holy Trinity” at Sonapore, Bengal, which in the decorations of the Shrine and the
priestly and other performances that took place, reminds us of many of the ancient
ideas and symbols. We are told that the “Church was highly decorated, the Sanctuary
had banners, shields, and flowers. The altar was vested in white silk with superfrontals
of red velvet; it had crowns, crosses, and fleurs-de-lis in gold relief. The
choristers, robed in cassock and surplices, each with a bouquet in hand, marched