huge sepulchres hewn in the rocks all conspire to make of this
spot a perfect abode for the god, or goddess, of fertility.
Here, too, is a beautiful lake and near it a sacred fig-tree
which has been struck by lightning, or, "touched by holy fire."
Of this sacred place Forlong writes:
"Christianity has never neglected this so-called Pagan shrine,
nor yet misunderstood it, if we may judge by the saint she has
located here, for Mr. Hobhouse found in the rocky chasm dipped in
the dews of Castaly, but safe in a rocky niche, a Christian
shrine; and close by a hut called the church of St. John; yea
verily of Ione, she who had once reigned here supreme; whilst on
a green plot a few yards below the basin, in a little grove of
olive trees, stood the monastery of Panhagia or Holy Virgin, so
that here we still have and beside her sacred form in the cleft,
men who have consecrated their manhood to the old Mother and
Queen of Heaven, just as if she of Syria had never been heard of.
Doubtless they knew little of what civilized Europe calls
Christianity, for I have spent many days conversing with such
men, and seen little difference between them and those similarly
placed in the far East--fervid Christians though Greeks and
Syrians are."
Perhaps nothing shows the extent to which the religion of the
pagans has been retained by Christianity more than does the
worship of the serpent. It has been said that this reptile
enters into every mythology extant. Ferguson is authority for
the statement that "he is to be found in the wilderness of Sinai,
the groves of Epidaurus, and in Samothracian huts." He
constitutes a prominent factor in the religious worship of India,
Assyria, Palestine, and Egypt, and, notwithstanding the fact that
he is not a native of Ireland, in an earlier age representations
of him appear in profusion among the symbols of that country. It
has been said that there is scarcely an Egyptian sculpture known
in which this reptile does not figure. The serpent whenever it
appears as a religious emblem always typifies desire--creative
energy--which, proceeding from the sun, is manifested in man and
in animals. Whether it be a veritable snake in a box, a serpent
connected with the figure of a woman, or as a carved
