508 SUN-WORSHIP. 



In some regions of South America, and principally in Peru, man 

 worships the sun as his supreme divinity, and it is easy to understand 

 the awe and wonder with which the uncultivated mind would 

 necessarily look upon the orb of day, the master and ruler of the 

 year. With Southey, I find myself ready to exclaim : 



" I marvel not, Sun, that unto thee 

 In adoration man should bow the knee. 

 And pour the prayer of mingled awe and love ; 

 For like a god thou art, and on thy way 

 Of glory sheddest, with benignant ray, 

 . Beauty, and life, and joyaunce from above." 



We know, too, that sun-worship has prevailed among the most 

 highly civilized races, and that it was the basis of Greek, Egyptian, 

 Celtic, and Oriental mythologies. "Our northern natures," says Mr. 

 Helps,* referring to the influence of this religion of the outer world, 

 " can hardly comprehend how the sun and the moon and the stars 

 were imaged in the heart of a Peruvian, and dwelt there ; how the 

 changes in these luminaries were combined with all his feelings and 

 his fortunes ; how the dawn was hope to him ; how the fierce mid- 

 day brightness was power to him ; how the declining sun was death to 

 him ; and how the new morning was a resurrection to him : nay, more, 

 how the sun and the moon and the stars were his personal friends, as 

 well as his deities ; how he held communion with them, and thought 

 that they regarded every act and word ; how, in his solitude, he 

 fondly imagined that they sympathized with him ; and how, with 

 outstretched arms, he appealed to them against their own unkindness, 

 or against the injustice of his fellow-man." But such a creed as this 

 is indicative of some degree of advancement, of some modicum of 

 civilization, and may not be compared with the monstrous fetichism 

 prevailing in Melanesia, Australia, Africa, and the Polar Deserts. In 

 these regions the savage takes for the objects of his veneration beasts 

 and inanimate objects ; or is without any definite belief, and shows 

 himself refractory to all religious teaching. Such is the case, according 

 * Arthur Helps, " Spanish Conquest in America." 



