ABORTGINAL SACRED ENCLOSURES. 15] 



to consecrate the earth around them. The Jews were assured that Jehovah dweh 

 between the emblematic cherubim. In the hope of rendering his homage in the 

 actual presence of his God, the Mohammedan pilgrim makes his weary journey to 

 Mecca, and the Hindu devotee seeks, from the remotest provinces, the shrine of 

 Jaggenath. The same idea of a living presence is manifested in the superstition of 

 the savage, who regards every remarkable tree, rock, cave, spring, or stream, as 

 the evidence or actual impersonation of a divinity, and renders his homage in 

 accordance with his belief. 



The presence of the gods was formerly supposed to be favorable, and powerfully 

 conducive, if not indispensably necessary, to the prosperity of cities and nations ; 

 and as such was ever desired and ever a cause of joy and exultation. The poet 

 Horace addresses the goddess Venus in terms significant of the benefits resulting 

 from her presence : 



" Goddess in blest Cyprus dwelling, 

 And Memphis wanting of Sithonian snow !" 



So, too. Homer alludes to the celestial mountain of Greece : 



" Olympus famed, the safe abode of gods. 

 By winds is never vexed, nor drenched with rain. 

 Snow falls not ; but the cloudless arch serene 

 "Widely expands; with brightness ever clear." 



Influenced by opinions such as these, we can readily understand how the temple 

 might take the symbohcal form of the god to whose worship it was dedicated ; 

 thereby being made more acceptable as his abode, at the same time that its form 

 proclaimed his presence. Sallust, in his treatise on the Gods and the World, 

 illustrates this ancient doctrine in the following words : " As the providence of the 

 gods is everywhere extended, a certain habitude or fitness is all that is necessary 

 in order to receive their beneficent communications. But all habitude is produced 

 through imitation and similitude ; and hence temples imitate the heavens, but altars 

 the earth ; statues resemble life, and on this account are similar to animals, etc."* 



The earth, remarks an ingenious writer, being regarded as God by a large por- 

 tion of the heathen world, any structure bearing that form might justly be consid- 

 ered as a symbol of the Deity, indicative of his power and his presence. The 



* The Pantheon at Rome was dedicated to all the gods ; who, instead of rude shrines consecrated to 

 each, as in the great temple of Mexico, had their statues placed within the vast rotunda. The great con- 

 cave dome, we are expressly told by Phny, was designed to represent the vault of Heaven ; " quod forma 

 ejus convexa fastigiatam coeK sbmlitudinem ostenderet." Yet it seems to have been eminently a temple 

 of the solar Apollo, whose colossal image was placed immediately in front of the entrance, the first and 

 most imposing object which met the eye of the spectator.— ( .See Faler, Pagan Idolatry, Vol. III., p. 

 284; Maurice, Ind. Antq. Vol. III., p. 185.) Mr. Dudley, who claims that the circle and the square 

 were the symbols of the reciprocal powers of nature, assumes that the circular Pantheon, with its quad- 

 rangular portico, was intended to signify the union of the two principles or powers.— (iVaoZo^'y, p. 390.) 



