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Let me explain. Assyria was a great nation, an intelligent 

 nation, and a learned nation, that fought great battles, and was 

 in every sense, a carnivorous, fighting, and hunting nation. Now 

 look at the Assyrian god. He has the head of a man, a fine in- 

 telligent head, full bearded and full browed, with fine eyes and a 

 generally masterful expression. He has the body cf a lion, 

 strength in every limb, force, and the carnivorous, flesh-eating, 

 hunting instinct in every muscle. Lastly, he has the wings of an 

 eagle, swiftness, a soaring power, a pouncing and seizing power, 

 and the whole constitutes the main great central abstract ideal 

 which was to be feared and worshipped, because it summed up 

 in one monster, the hopes, aims, and aspirations, as well as the 

 glory of the nation, which had no higher aims than these. 

 And so the god was evolved, clothed with flesh, and became to 

 them a real being. But the higher the race goes in civilization, 

 the less it has to do with monsters. "We find that after a period 

 of time, the monsters depart and men take their place altogether, 

 thus in Greece and Eome we find nearly all the star gods 

 evolved into beautiful men and women, now and then with a 

 faint trace of the beast as in Mercury for instance, with winged 

 feet, emblematical of speed and swiftness of flight, as the Centaur 

 with the body of a horse and the upper portion of a man as a 

 head. To those people in those times, undoubtedly those legen- 

 dary beings were real, and were believed in, just as much as 

 people now-a-days believe in ghosts. Speaking of ghosts, goblins, 

 etc., reminds me that a great efl'ort is being made now-a-days, to 

 raise these poor old played out mythical monsters into active work 

 again. Just when the " Bogie Man " that came and snatched 

 away little children had died a natural death, up he comes again 

 as full of terror as ever. Mr. de Smythe, who never did any- 

 thing in his life worth mentioning, is dragged from space to 

 knock on a table or throw plates off a rack in the pantry ; the 

 curious part of it all, being that the people who are clothing these 

 horrors of the imagination with flesh and making them appear as 

 though tliey were real beings, are not gentlemen who run about 

 in Central Africa, wearing a bead or two and a look of mild sur- 

 prise, but men who have studied science and know all about the 

 properties of matter, and therefore ought to known better. 



There is one monster which is ever popular with us, will 

 always be firmly believed in by one party and ridiculed by the 

 other, and that regularly appears when Her Majesty's faithful 

 Commons are not occupied in their arduous labours. I refer to 

 the sea serpent. No sooner do I mention that entei-prising and 

 useful gentleman's name, than my audience is divided into two 

 parties ; — for and against. I have read authentic stories (says 

 one perhaps in his mind), and I know it is true that there is such a 



