Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
Fire had been kindled from Sol’s rays and placed in the Sanctuary. No unclean
object was allowed to come near Agni; none durst even warm themselves near him;
nor could any blameworthy action take place in his presence. He was only approached
for adoration or prayer; not as Fire, which he was not, but as sexual flame, or Life.
Prayers were offered to him similar to those Christians use; and with most, he held
just such a mediatorial office as Christ does. The Almighty was addressed through
him, and he was asked for health, happiness, wisdom, and foresight; guidance in prosperity,
and comfort in adversity, long life, offspring, and all manly and womanly
qualifications. His followers were taught that it was the most heinous sin to approach
him with unclean hearts or hands, and were encouraged to come to him at all times for
repentance and sanctification.
Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to the sacred fire; and on
returning, the father must needs do so even before embracing his wife and children.
Thus Agamemnon acted, we are told, on his return from Troy. 1 Sacrifices, libations,
wine, oil, and victims were regularly offered to the Fire, and as the god brightened
up under the oils, all exulted and fell down before him. They believed that he ate
and drank, and with more reason than the Jew said this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai.
Above all, it was necessary to offer food and wine to him; to ask a blessing before every
meal, and return thanks when it was over, and these customs common to Essenes—Jesus
observed in addressing IHOVAH before eating. From Ovid and Horace 2 we see it was
thought pious and proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and to make oblations
to it. There was no difference between Romans, Greeks, and Hindoos in these respects,
except that Soma wine in India took the place of the grape of cooler lands. All alike
besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of flocks and families, for happy lives and
serene old age, for wisdom and pardon from sin. We see the great antiquity of this
faith in the well-known fact that even when the early Greeks were sacrificing to Zeus and
Athene at Olympia, they always first invoked Agni, precisely as had been ordered in
the Vedas some 2000 years B.C., and probably as he had been invoked many thousands
of years before the art of writing was known. More will appear in my chapter on Greek
and Roman Faiths as to the Lares and Penates of later Roman history, but let us here
try to identify these “Gods of the Fire-place” and show their place in other faiths.
It seems extraordinary to Asiatics—as I have often found when conversing with
them about Roman faiths, and what Europeans believe in regard to them—that this
matter is still so misunderstood in Europe, where the worship of the Lares and Penates
is usually held to be in some mysterious way the worship of the dead, and the ancestors of
the household! No clear attempt has yet been made to my knowledge, to unravel this
subject from the confusion in which it lies, and set forth in their true light those Gods
here veiled, but with none of the cunning which disguises the Eduth or “Testimony.”
1 Rev. T. C. Barker’s Aryan Civil., p. 2.
2 Hor. Sat. II. 6. 66; Ovid, Fast. II. 631; Petron. 60; Barker, 3.