FLORAL SYMBOLS. 99 



i\^hich embodied the ideas of their daily faith. Dread and mystical 

 as many of these are, even when viewed in the calm light of reason, 

 there is yet a bewitching poetry, and a sublimity of thought associated 

 with them, as startling and wonderful, as they are beautiful and true. 

 The history of the universe has been written in living characters upon 

 the obdurate granite in which those mystic caves are hewn. The 

 dawn of creation is represented by a leaf divided into light and dark- 

 ness; when 



The heavens and the eaxth 

 Rose out of a chaos. 



And the story of the ages has in like manner been written in symbols 

 of leaves and flowers. 



Of the flowers consecrated to religious deities by the symbol wor- 

 shippers of India and Egypt, none occupy a more prominent position 

 than the Lotos. Its sacred leaf was the 



Emhlem and cradle of creative Night. 



It was anciently revered in Egypt, as it is at this day at Hindostan, 

 Thibet, and Nepaul, where they believe it was in the consecrated bosom 

 of this plant that Brahma was born, and on which Osiris delights to 

 float. Naturalists have differed in opinion whether the celebrated 

 Lotos was a hero, a flower, or a tree. Some authors have affirmed 

 that it was a rough, thorny shrub, the seeds of which were used to 

 make bread; but the testimony of Herodotus, that the lotos is a 

 species of water-lily, which grows in abundance in the Nile during 

 the inundations, is so very conclusive, that no other solution of the 

 question can be accepted. Herodotus bears testimony to the high 

 antiquity of the Egyption veneration for the lotus, and M. Savary 

 assures us that at the present day, the degenerate children of the Nile 

 are animated by the same feelings of worship and veneration. It was 

 called the "Lily of the Nile," from its growing in abundance on t^ e 

 banks, and in the marshes which form the delta of that river. It is a 

 stately and majestic plant, of the Nymphae tribe, and rises above two 

 feet above the water, having a calyx like a large tulip, and diffusing 

 an odour like that of the lily. The wonderful physical peculiarities 

 in the growth of this plant, rendered it an appropriate symbol in a 

 worship of the most degrading and immoral character. 



The plant grows in the water, and the blossoms are produced 

 amongst its broad ovate leaver . In the centre of the flower is fdrmed 

 the seed-YesseJ, which is prot'uced in the form of a btU or inverted 



h2 



