Rambling in many strange countries, seeing palaces, costumes, men, and manners, this subject, paramount to them all, has often received my attention—a theme the most precious to the scattered races of the human family, their religion. It is worthy of remark that so large a proportion of the intaglios and seals were of a religious character.
The ancient residents near the sea and on all the frontier of Asia Minor had their religious token-gems.
In this day of enlightenment naturally we are astonished that men could have believed in these gods or in such theories and dogmas, and expressing astonishment that they could have trusted in these talismans or hoped for benefits from them. We wonder at the absurd codes of mythological religion; yes, let us call it so; that is what it was for these people; they knew not our God, they had never heard of our divine Master.
Until the revelation of Christ to us, man naturally had to look somewhere for refuge for his soul; he had to cling to some unseen hand, lest he should fall.
Do we often realize what modern Christianity is? These pagans, of whose religions we have so many little stone monuments, were all anterior to and existed during ages before that revelation.
Christians of to-day, reflect: all these heathen, as you no doubt esteem them, were earnest in the performance of their duties, their prayers, their adoration, and their sacrifices—many of them more devout than some of us under the light of the twentieth century.
True, these religions were the inventions of men, the outcome of the longings and yearnings of sympathetic men for a superior guiding and protecting power—Deity, if you will allow it—to which to turn and in which to hope.
They worshipped faithfully, adored sincerely, obeyed implicitly, lived simple lives, in keeping with their primitive faith. Was it not reasonable, this worship of a people who had no divine revelation? Was it not beautiful? Can you not even now see something to admire in devotional exercises held in God’s open air, turning in adoration myriads of earnest eyes upon the Sun, “the beauty and the glory of the day,” devoutly praising from the heart the majesty and the power of the Supreme Being, the Maker and the Ruler of this benign light? Their principal fête, on which they all assembled joyfully and gratefully to bow before the glorious orb, was on the same day we have accepted as the anniversary of the birth of Christ our Redeemer.
And so it was with those who venerated and carried engraved emblems of those incomprehensible elements, Fire and Water.
As symbolic of the inscrutable power the Parsees keep a flame constantly burning upon an altar in the inner temple; so sacred is it that only the higher priests set apart for that service can enter therein; yet through their mediation thousands participate in the ceremony and enjoy the consolation of its power—a force of terrible destructibility, yet with the genial phase which comforts and contributes to the nourishment of man. This form of worship originated in Persia, and when its disciples emigrated and distributed themselves throughout many countries and islands of India and the shores of the neighboring seas, they carefully carried the sacred fire with them; and it is believed it has never ceased to burn during many centuries. Red and spotted maculation in agates have been utilized by incisori to represent the flame of an altar fire.