some separate part of nature or of the life of men.

XXIX. Polytheism, or Belief in Many Gods.

Thus instead of thinking only of a separate spirit as dwelling in every streamlet, he conceived of one river-god or water-god ruling all streams, or of one sea-god ruling every sea. I hope you are taking notice of the lesson this history has so far taught, that the more man began to think and to know, the more did he lessen the number of his gods. Thus arose belief in one god ruling the thunder, another the rain, another the wind, another the sun, and so on.

As the best way of making quite clear to you the growth of belief in these great controlling beings, I will try and explain to you how the worship of the sun and moon began.

There is nothing that would excite man's wonder at first so much as the fact that daylight was not always with him, that for a time he could see things around him, and then that

the darkness crept over them and caused him to grope along his path or lie down to rest.

Each morning, before the sun was seen, rays of light shot upward as if to herald his coming, and then he arrived to flood the earth with more light, growing brighter and brighter till the eye could scarce look upon him, so dazzling was the glory. Then as slowly he sank again, the light-rays lingering as they came until they passed away altogether.

About all the other gifts which the sun is made to shed upon this and other worlds you may read in books on astronomy (such as Mr. Lockyer's Lessons in that science), and from those you may learn true wonder-tales describing how we are all what the Incas of South America were called, "children of the sun;" here I am dealing with the sun as an object of worship only.

Welcome as was the light given by moon and far-off stars, it was less sure than the sun's, and, although it relieved the gloom and darkness, could not chase night away.

Therefore the natural feeling of man was

to bow before this Lord of Light, and, in the earliest known form of adoration, kiss his hand to it, paying it the offering of sacrifice. There is an old story from some Jewish writings known as the Talmud, which describes very powerfully man's feeling concerning the darkness and the light.

It relates that "when Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden of Eden, they wandered over the face of the earth. And the sun began to set, and they looked with fear at the lessening of the light, and felt a horror like death steal over their hearts. And the light of

heaven grew paler and the wretched ones clasped one another in an agony of despair. Then all grew dark. And the luckless ones fell on the earth, silent, and thought that God had withdrawn from them the light for ever; and they spent the night in tears. But a beam of light began to rise over the eastern hills, after many hours of darkness, and the golden sun came back and dried the tears of Adam and Eve, and then they cried out with joy and said, 'Heaviness may endure for a night, but

joy cometh in the morning; this is a law that God hath laid upon nature."

The worship of the heavenly bodies is not only very wide-spread but continued to a late age among the great nations of the past, as the names of their gods and the remains of their temples prove. In this island pillars were once raised to the sun, and altars to the moon and the earth-goddess, while the story of early belief is preserved in the names given to some of the days of the week, as Sun-day, Mon- or Moon-day.

Days were the most ancient division of time, and as the changes of the moon began to be watched they marked the weeks, four weeks roughly making up the month which was seen to elapse between every new moon. To distinguish one day from another, names were given; and as it was a belief that each of the seven planets presided over a portion of the day, their names were applied to the seven days of the week.

Our forefathers however consecrated the days of the week to their seven chief gods. Sunday

and Monday to the sun and moon, as already stated; Tuesday to Tuisco (which name, strange as it may seem, comes from the same wordroot as Deity), father of gods and men; Wednesday to Woden or Odin, one-eyed ruler of heaven and god of war; Thursday to Thor, the god of thunder; Friday to Friga, Woden's wife; Saturday either to Seater, a Saxon god, or to Saturn. We use the name for each month of the year which the Romans gave, but the Saxon names were very different, January being called the wolf-monat or wolfmonth, March the lenet-monat, because the days were seen to lengthen, and so on.

I should tell you that there are countries where, because the heat of the sun is so fierce as to scorch and wither plant and often cause death to man, he is not worshipped as the giver of the blessed light, but feared as an evil, malicious god.

The worship of fire is usually found joined to that of sun, moon, and stars. Fire gives light and warmth; it seems, in its wonderful power to lick up all that is heaped upon it, like some