Forlong - Rivers of Life

406
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
every one of them harps and golden vials fulll of odours,” 1 which at my beheſt
they are ready to pour down on an expexant universe.
Liſten to the chants and praises of all the Chriſtian world—“Worthy the
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom;” “Salvation to
our God which sitteth upon the throne.” Only of late have ye subſtituted your
dying man, 2 but ſtill I hear you chant to me, “Worthy the Lamb that died,”
“Agnus redemit oves,” or “Victima Paschale,” and this at my Hilaria, as was
done thousands of years before, with crosses, candles, torches, and every symbol
of Fire-worship, with grave solemnity or with wild revelry, as befitted the age
and conſtitution of my varied children. It was my fire that ever and again came
down from Heaven to “light the world.” Perseus, by my permission, lit the
Magian shrine of old, and on me did the Roman Veſtales wait in the vernal year
to re-light all the sacred fires of that world-wide empire. But long ere that had
the prieſts of moſt ancient Egypt touched my “blood-red rays,” as I was painted
over their vernal sacrifice of the three Lambs, and thus lighted their holy “Pile.”
In later days I was that Egyptian Paschal Lamb, whose blood on their doors,
said the wandering Edumeans, saved their race when the Fiery God passed over
the land. It was me and mine they pixured in their ſtrange, rambling, myſtic
tale of earth and Heaven’s “creation.” Mine were their six days of labour,
and to me they owed a seventh of reſt. My autumnal decline was the serpent
which bit you, and caused you to clothe yourselves, and carefully to till the soil,
leſt ye died. All this, these poor Nomads borrowed from my far older and more
learned followers, whose prieſts in later days came and bleſt that infant, “the Son
given” in Bethlehem, my “house of bread,” for I am “the Lord,” and only “breadmaker.”
To that race and these Shemitic foundations do you indeed owe the
growth which has sprung into this great Chriſtian Tree, but from my lore and my
children did you all get it, and at second and third hand, though I will not say
without a subſtratum of fax.
Not only in Weſtern Asia was I conceived in a Virgin’s womb, but the
moanings of the goddess Sais, 3 as she brought me forth, I heard from earth’s
remoteſt bounds, and my child Boodh, and Somo-Kodon, of far-off Siam,
and many another in China and her isles, have all claimed me as of a Virgin
born; indeed, their beſt and greateſt were from my “overshadowings” of
virgin wombs. In the icy North I was fierce Odin with all his solar myths,
1
The Apocalpyse [scil. of John], V., 8.
2
In 680, during the Pontificate of Agathon, the Sixth Council of Constantinople decreed that a man rather
than a lamb should be shown at the foot of the cross.
3
[Qy. “goddess of Saïs” (Neith). — T.S.]