98 
RELIGION. 
earliest days, seems to perpetuate the first worship offered to 
the Maker. The fidelity of that narrative is evidenced by 
the primitive rites of every race,, which prove how firmly 
impressed upon the human mind,, and how fondly treasured 
was the remembrance of those blissful days, when the grand 
progenitor drew nigh to his Creator in the solemn evening 
shade of the trees of Eden. This has ever been looked back 
to as the golden age, of which almost every nation has 
preserved some cherished recollection. It is to be traced 
through each subsequent period of man's history when a 
wanderer far from that happy spot, his race became widely 
dispersed over the surface of the globe. The remembrance 
of the trees of Eden went with him. The Patriarchal 
Church had its groves and oaks; they were its sanctuary, 
beneath their sacred shade those early worshippers drew 
nigh unto God. From Phoenicia, where still the Druse 
remains, the sacred grove reached Britain, where long the 
Druid ministered amongst his venerated trees. 
Perhaps in the celebrated hanging gardens of Babylon 
this worship existed. The kings of Israel and Judah thus 
used their gardens, and on their high places stood the sacred 
grove. In Africa's length and breadth the same is found ; 
in India's dim-lighted caves and temples, as well as in those 
of Egypt, the representation of the solemn gloom of the 
forest is to be detected ; and even in Sion's sacred adytum, 
its holy of holies, amidst its carved palm trees, was the same 
recollection preserved. 
From the furthest east to America, in the Teocalli, Deocolle , 
crowned with the sacred tree, to the Polynesian marae and 
wahi tapu of New Zealand, is this earliest form of worship 
found, which has thus encircled the entire globe, for even the 
Australian savage requires the gloom of the forest in which to 
celebrate his midnight rites ; amidst the trees they inter their 
dead, and on them in hieroglyphics inscribe the name, cha- 
racter, family, and tribe of the deceased. The sacred grove 
of the Maori formed the most conspicuous feature in his reli- 
gion, the very name of which preserved its character, being 
Te Rctkau Tapu — the sacred tree. In the grove the priest 
