Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
This is the last day of the summer Solstice, 1 but the beginning of the period of great
and increasing heat. Can it be on this account that the Faith dedicates the 29th of
June to such ardent pietists as St. Peter and St Paul, who truly came as their Master
predicted, not to give peace to earth, but the sword?
On the 15th of August, says the Christian Church, Mary ascended to heaven (the
Assumption), and this is the day when the Zodiacal Constellation Virgo, called by the
Greeks Astrea, left the European horizon; and when Virgo emerges from the Sun’s rays
on the 8th of September, that day is held sacred as the nativity of the “Queen of
heaven.” The writer of The Keys thinks that Pisces is a holy symbol, because the
Sun’s place at the vernal Equinox is now in this constellation, whereas it was formerly
in Aries and in still more ancient days, in Taurus. This may be so, but I cannot
follow him here into his solar derivation of the miracles, &c., because I do not credit
ancient men with so much wit and wisdom as this involves. I am inclined to think
they were more like animals than either philosophers or cunning myth-conjurors, and
that we often exaggerate their knowledge of astronomy,
It may be as well to mention here for the benefit of non-scientific readers, or
those who have forgotten their astronomy, a few facts concerning our Solar Deity, which
must enhance his attributes, power, and god-like majesty, even in the cultivated minds
of the present century. far above what was possible to the most ardent worshippers
in ancient days. What, for instance does such a statement as the above of his passing
through three signs of the Zodiac imply? No less a period than 6453 years; for his
“Great Cycle,” or the time required for him to pass through his whole twelve signs, is
no less than 25,812 years, and therefore every change in his signs, as for instance that
here mentioned, of his having moved from Aries to Pisces (that is shifted the time of
the vernal Equinox from Aries to Pisces,—and we can demonstrate that more than this
has taken place since the Egyptians reared their Zodiacs) involves a period of
2151 years, 2 —three of these require, therefore, 6453 years. Nor does THE CREATOR
OF CYCLES ordain these only to be passed once! They have no doubt been passed
hundreds of times, and will be hundreds more, when we shall have all returned to
the dust from whence we sprang. The “Smaller Cycle” of the Sun, or that period of
time required to bring back the days of the month to the same days of the week is 28
years.
Although we call the Sun a stationary body, it is not really so; and although
practically it does not move in its relation to us, still it does so with great
rotatory and onward velocity in the direction of the constellation Hercules, carrying
the earth and all its other planets with it, as they in turn do their attendant moons, or
satellites. The lesser bodies of the system describe the smaller orbits and the larger
greater ones, and observe their cyclic periods and pursue their devious paths with
mathematical exactness.
1 Keys of the Creeds, p. 69.
25812
=
12
2
2151.
417