Forlong - Rivers of Life

Introductory Chapter.
symbolic fish, whilst the whole Mahomedan world still, month by month, watches for
respectfully, and salutes with reverence, Isis’ new crescent moon, as she first appears as
the horns of the cow: nay, they place it boldly on that proud banner which rules so
many millions of people from the pillars of Hercules to the sea of Okotsk. This reminds
us also of the great people who here flank the Asiatic continent, and whom I shall show
further on are not yet ashamed, in their most progressive form of the present day, to
denote the old faiths of serpent, tree, and shield, as well as of the sun god, from which
springs her very name Japan (Ja or Je, Sun) upon the new coin of the Empire. All,
whether the Sun-god, “Sun of Righteousness,” Dagon, Isis, the symbolic flaming
candle or humble fire-vessel, on the altars of the devout, the Fleur-de-lys, modern or
ancient crosses, all and every one of these, tell alike the same story in the eyes of the
pious archeologist, seeking fro the roots of man’s faiths.
Totem and fetish worship is indeed a most important portion of the study of all
who seek for these roots and straying branches; yet I cannot look upon Totemism as
a stream of faith, though Scrutator properly puts it first as “man’s nature of religion,
in his purely barbarous state.” We do however find nearly one quarter of the world
yet deifying, or at least reverencing, “sticks and stones, Ram horns and charms,” and
I therefore feel inclined to exhibit this fetishism and demonology by a deep wash,
forming a ground colour with my streams of faith. It might then be fined off in
colour as the streams become broad and well-defined, but it should in this case be
continued to the present time. It is equally Fetishism which adores relics such as the
tooth of Boodha, and bits of the cross of Christ, as that which bows at the sound of
his name and venerates holy books; many sects bow low in opening their Bibles and
surely it is making fetishes of these books, when men and woman bend the knee and
head to these, or touch them with the forehead as Hindoos, Mahomedans, and others do,
and call upon their God to enable them to receive as direct from Him everything they
may there hear or read, no matter how perverse or shocking to intellect and moral sense.
We see a strong phase of Fetish worship in the little charms of Urim and
Thumim; in the Eduth (a lingam) or “the Testament;” and in the Ark of present
synagogues; and we know now that this Urim and Thumim were only parts of the
paraphernalia used in the arts of divination and sorcery, although the origin I believe
to be strictly Egyptian and Phallic. The root Thum we learn is the Hebrew and
Arabic for Thmei, the Egyptian for “Truth,” corresponding to (qšmij) Themis, the
Greek for Justice. The Alexandrian translators of the LXX give us as the Greek
translation (Dšlwsij) Delosis, manifestation, and ('Al»qeia), Aletheia, Truth, and the
Alexandrian Jew Philo tells us that the sacred breastplate of the Hebrews contained
images of the two virtues or powers. (See Francis Newman’s Hebrew Monarchy,
p. 34.) I therefore see Maiya in “Truth,” and the reason why the mirror was her
symbol, and thus why “Truth” become the “manifestation” of the generative or great
creative power in the Thumim or Delosis. The ideas were enigmatically shown in
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