RELIGION. 
99 
performed his mystic rites ; there he professed to hold 
converse with his gods, and thence brought back their 
responses. 
Not only in the sacred grove were their greatest chiefs 
interred, but they were placed on stages amongst the 
branches of some ancient tree, or in the hollow of a time- 
worn trunk. The spirits of departed chiefs were supposed 
to abide within their precincts, and to afflict with disease 
any who profanely intruded within them. Grove-worship 
seems naturally to have been connected with that of isolated 
trees ; the remembrance of the tree of life is still preserved 
in the reverence paid by the Brahmin and Buddhist to the 
sacred tree, Deodar, planted by the side of their temples, as 
the yew is by ours. The fetish tree is found throughout 
Africa, as well as New Zealand, Polynesia, and throughout 
the southern hemisphere. 
Whilst the human race seems to have preserved a remem- 
brance of the trees of Eden and the happiness once enjoyed 
beneath their shade, they seem likewise never to have for- 
gotten their fall, and the Evil One by whom it was effected, 
as well as the form he assumed. Serpent-worship is co-eval 
and co-extensive with that of the grove ; wherever one is 
found the other is also. Traces of its former existence are 
still to be seen even in England ; near Abury yet remain 
the relics of a gigantic serpent monument, in four hundred 
and sixty-one oblong blocks of stone, which for more than 
two miles once traced the huge coils of the serpent amongst 
the Downs of Wiltshire. Throughout the whole world, in 
the present as well as past ages, are proofs of this worship to 
be found. To it may be added that of the grand luminaries 
of heaven, symbolized by fire ; the ancient faith of Zoroaster, 
is still preserved by the Guebres and Parsees of the present 
day. The round towers of Ireland, and the many places 
in that island still called after Baal, attest the universality 
of this worship. The moon and stars were reverenced by a 
section of the Maori race, and the sacred fire may be said to 
have burnt in every house. 
The universal existence of these several forms lead to one 
h 2 
