10 



THE OAK. 



inhabitants of the whole of Greece when they 

 wished to inquire the will of their imaginary 

 god, Jupiter ; and we have seen that the Israel- 

 ites resorted to the Oak woods of Palestine with 

 a similar object. 



Let us take warning from their example, and 

 be careful that, with whatsoever reverence we 

 approach the works of Nature, we forget not 

 that they are the works of the God of Nature ; 

 and that they were planted by Him that ^^we 

 may see and know, and consider, and understand 

 together that the hand of, the Lord hath done 

 this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it." 



Baal, the false god of the Canaanites, is con- 

 sidered by learned men to be identical ^^'ith the 

 Roman Saturn, the Celtic Yiaoul, and the British 

 Yule, whose festival was kept at the time when 

 we celebrate Christmas. (You see how we are 

 entangled in this melancholy maze of eiTors.) 

 By one of these nations this na7ne was worshipped 

 as significant of the god of fire ; by another it 

 was identified with the sun ; by another vene- 

 rated under the fonn of an Oak. Its priests, 

 who were called Druids," professed to maintain 

 perpetual fire, and once every year all the fires 

 belonging to the people were extinguished, and 

 relighted from the sacred fire of the Druids. Tliis 

 was the origin of the Yule-log, with which, even 

 so lately as the commencement of the present 

 century, the Christmas fire, in some parts of the 

 country, was always kindled, and is even now 

 in Devonshire and Yorkshire ; a fresh log being 

 thrown on and lighted, but taken off* before it ■ 

 was consumed, and reserved to kindle the Christ- 

 mas fire of the following year. The Yule-log 



