| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic
natives saying that they knew the land was doomed to pass
from their children. Every one has heard of the inexplicable
reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island
of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook's voyages: although
in that case we might have expected that it would have been
increased; for infanticide, which formerly prevailed to so
extraordinary a degree, has ceased; profligacy has greatly
diminished, and the murderous wars become less frequent.
The Rev. J. Williams, in his interesting work, [2] says, that
the first intercourse between natives and Europeans, "is
 The Voyage of the Beagle |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: alluded to, and partly on account of the light which the festival
generally, whether Christian or Pagan, throws on the
origins of Religious Magic--a subject I shall have to deal
with in the next chapter.
[1] See Robertson's Christianity and Mythology, Part II, pp.
129-302; also Doane's Bible Myths, ch. xxviii, p. 278.
I have already (Ch. II) mentioned the Eucharistic
rite held in commemoration of Mithra, and the indignant
ascription of this by Justin Martyr to the wiles of the Devil.
Justin Martyr clearly had no doubt about the resemblance
of the Mithraic to the Christian ceremony. A Sacramental
 Pagan and Christian Creeds |