K1MMERIDGE COAL-MONEY. 189 



querors the Babylonians that the language of their rituals was 

 retained, and, becoming in time obsolete and unintelligible to these 

 people after the old generation had passed away in order to make it 

 intelligible to the worshippers, the living language was inscribed 

 upon the same liturgical tablet by the side of the forgotten one, 

 analogous to the usage of the Church of Eome. This wise and 

 prudent policy secured, or helped to secure, the loyalty and 

 obedience of the subdued people. There is a statute as late as the 

 reign of Canute forbidding the "barbarous" to adore the sun 

 and moon, fire, fountains, stones, and trees. Fire was adored by the 

 Turanian and Aryan nations. The Magi of Persia, while they wor- 

 shipped the elements, gave the first place to water and fire. In this 

 respect they resembled the Accadian magicians, who pretended they 

 could by their incantations and religious ceremonies cause fire to 

 descend upon their funeral pyres. In some instances it was regarded 

 as a divinity ; Vesta had no image in her own temple, the Vestal 

 fire being considered as the goddess herself. The fire of the family 

 hearth was held to be sacred, and its flame was never to be put 

 out, nor to go out. It was obligatory to keep it pure and bright. 

 Herodotus says the Persians ascended the loftiest mountains and 

 there offered sacrifices to Jupiter, the name they gave to the whole 

 circuit of the firmament. He adds, too, that they offered to the 

 sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and to the winds, as gods whose 

 worship had come down to them from ancient times. Fire was also 

 an object of adoration among the Chaldeans, as shown by their 

 hymnals. It was worshipped in the sacrificial flame, and as it rose 

 from the domestic hearth they regarded it as the most powerful 

 and active of their gods, by the aid of which they had the 

 most direct communication with heaven and could at their own will 

 produce it on the altar of sacrifice. The message of Jehovah to 

 the Jews by the prophet Isaiah, ch. xliv., 14 16, refers to the 

 fire-worship of the apostate Jews : " He planteth an ash and the 

 rain doth nourish it ; then it shall be for a man to burn. He 

 maketh a god and worshippeth it ; he burneth part thereof in the 

 fire, with part thereof he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, and is 



