Forlong - Rivers of Life

Fire Worship.
and prayerful on the battlefield of Platea, allowing the Persians to shoot them down
rather than advance or even defend themselves, till their priests declared that the
entrails of the fowls showed favourable signs. Truly, says the Rev. Mr Barker, every
movement of these ancient men was controlled and regulated by their religion, and
not an action or a habit was free from its influence; 1 true, this fervency—faithful-
ness unto the end, was the result of fear and the hope of reward, but what religion does
not instil the first and promise the latter, in order to keep its multitudes in thrall?
“What will you give us in place of our faith and our book,” cry all
timid ones when unable to combat history and common sense, and anxious to fall
back again into their “sleepy hollow.” They have not yet seen that Fire, Sun, and
other such objects gave, for thousands of generations, the same firm “faith and confidence,”
which Europe now has in many insubstantial myths and false “history” if we
may place two such words in conjunction. When all the world worshipped sexual
symbolism, Sun, and Fire, these faiths inculcated honour to parents, kings, and “all in
authority,” and Fire was the first teacher, among Greeks and Latins, of every social and
political virtue; 2 it made and unmade Arkons and Kings according as they were true
to their religion, and “lived by faith” as well as works; and on its downfall, he adds,
arose all the disorganization of Southern Europe. Now had that faith been reasonable
or founded on reason, had the people loved loyalty, or law-observance, rather than
mere royalty or king-worship, the change of their faith would have caused no such
unfortunate disorganization, for our abstract beliefs are of very little consequence in
comparison with our deeds. One of the greatest signs of our times is the progress of
a fair “general education,” which has not only made men better than their creeds, but
even indifferent about dogmas and forms; yet this is not always apparent, for “breadwinners”
are too often forced to be “respectably religious,” to attend “all ordinances,”
and keep in favour with priests, pastors, and masters; hence much of the inconsistency
of conduct so often seen, and by none more honestly deplored than by the
offenders themselves. In politics men are in advance of this, having cast aside that.
grievous error of the ancient world which held that the laws of a Minos, Lykurgus,
and Numa were dictated by “the gods,” as the old Etruskan declared this of his great
Tages from the seven hills of Rome, before there was a Roman. Strange that such a
superstition or belief should supplant or suppress the soul of reason, which had generated
these very laws. The law-abiding spirit of thoe days was, as Plato expressed
it, “Obey the laws, and you obey the Gods.” Sokrates died in order that the laws
might be obeyed, and Sparta graved on the rock of Thermopylæ: “Traveller, go, say
at Sparta, that we died here to obey her laws.” These ancients gave “no preamble,
and alleged no reasosons as to why a law should be obeyed,” such being with them
quite unnecessary, as all agreed they were divine; and therefore “obedience became a
principle of faith,” and all were expected to die willingly to uphold every tittle of
1 Aryan Civil., 106.
2 Aryan Civil., 4, 15, 18, 29, 32, 45 &c.
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