200 IN STARRY REALMS. 



in the order of their distances, and then read them by 

 beginning with Saturn, and skipping two each time. They 

 will come into the following order : Saturn, Sun, Moon, 

 Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Yenus, and then Saturn again. 

 Now we have reached the precise order of the days in the 

 week. The meaning of Saturday and Sunday we have 

 already explained, Monday is Moonday, and the French 

 Lundi means also the Day of the Moon. Tuesday is con- 

 nected with Mars; in fact, the French word Mardi, 

 meaning Tuesday, is obviously Mars' Day. Wednesday, 

 or Mercredi in French, is Mercury Day. Thursday is 

 derived from Thor, a deity analogous to Jupiter. Fri- 

 day is shewn to be the day of Venus. Thus not only 

 the seven days of the week, but the very names of the 

 days themselves are directly related to the names of the 

 seven planets. 



It is a question of much interest as to why the 

 names of the heathen deities should have been as- 

 signed to the planets. How comes it, for instance, that 

 the God Jupiter should have given a name to the great 

 planet ? The question is not without some difficulty, but 

 the origin of it appears to be as follows. There are at 

 the present day and doubtless ever .have been races 

 who worshipped the sun as a deity. Considering that the 

 sun was only one of the seven wanderers, it was not 

 unnatural that devotional homage should also have been 

 rendered to the other similar bodies. This was all the 

 more natural because the movements of these bodies were 

 believed to be intimately associated with human affairs. 

 That globe which we now style the planet Jupiter was 

 itself regarded as a deity, and as such was worshipped. A 



