PROCEEDINGS. 
553 
of smoke by day and a pillar of flame by night, led and accompanied 
everywhere by their sacred fire. 
The same is true of ancient Greece, but in later times the prytaneum 
contained the sacred fire and the personified goddess of the i<rrta, or 
hearth, became Hestia. 
Every Greek state had its prytaneum, which may be described as the 
town hall of the capital. When the king of Athens extended his sway 
over the whole of Attica, each petty town, hitherto independent, had to 
abolish its sacred fire and the hearth of Athens w r as the prytaneum of 
Attica. In this building ambassadors were entertained and distinguished 
citizens maintained at public expense, and it was the headquarters of 
the officials known as prytanes. 
In Rome the goddess still kept the name of Vesta and her sacred edifice 
was the iEdes Vestae; but the fire was called focus. Vestal virgins were 
charged with its preservation and punished by being buried alive if it 
were allowed to go out. They were held in the highest honor and re¬ 
lieved from all public duties and taxations. 
From time immemorial it has been the custom with those who have 
dedicated their lives to the service of truth also to erect in every town a 
council-house, in the center of which was kept burning the sacred fire of 
science, and every man who was privileged to enter the holy precincts 
there received the gift of a live coal, with which he could kindle the 
flame in his own bosom. At stated times these reverend men would 
divest themselves of the dress and fashions of daily occupation and be¬ 
take themselves to their consecrated retreat. They discussed the mys¬ 
teries of numbers, the brightness and movements of the heavenly bodies, 
the secrets of fire, and sunlight and lightning and alchemy. They named 
all the herbs and assigned to each its peculiar properties, and all the 
animals, reading the inmost intents of their thoughts. But most of all 
did they ponder upon their wonderful selves—on birth and growth and 
death; on the body and the soul; on the origins of their tribes; on the 
mysteries of the under world. There gathered medicine men and astrol¬ 
ogers and magicians and sorcerers and Chaldeans and rain-makers and 
wise men and princes and judges and captains and governors and coun¬ 
selors and sheriffs and all the rulers of provinces to make their reports 
and to hear and be heard. 
It was in the year of our Lord 1871 that such a temple was dedicated 
in Washington and such an altar, sacred to pure science, was erected. It 
is not a part of my function now to eulogize those master spirits that 
gathered round that council fire. Following the customs of the ancient 
tribes, the w T alls of the wigwam were decorated with the trophies of past 
victories; this time not with real skulls and shields and scalps, but with 
brains. Tier after tier of volumes in gory bindings rose above their 
heads, in which were pictured the mangled bodies of men and women 
and children and animals; and here and there, on a pedestal or on the 
wall, were the busts and portraits of men who had distinguished them¬ 
selves as carvers of human flesh. 
