of all life. Subsequently a new creation was brought forth under
which the same order of events will take place. The involution
of life, or its return to the great source whence it sprang, did
not, however, involve the destruction of matter. The seeds of
returning life were preserved in an ark or boat--the female
principle, within which all things are contained. This indrawing
of life constituted "the night of Brahme." It was represented by
Vishnu sleeping on the bottom of the sea.
From the facts adduced in relation to the Etrurians we are not
surprised to find that their religion was that of the ancient
Nature worshippers, and that a mother with her child stood for
their god-idea. In referring to the religion of this people, and
to the great antiquity of the worship of the Virgin and Child,
Higgins remarks: "Amongst the Gauls, more than a hundred years
before the Christian era, in the district of Chartres, a festival
was celebrated in honor of the Virgin," and in the year 1747, a
mithraic monument was found "on which is exhibited a female
nursing an infant--the Goddess of the year nursing the God day."
To which he adds: "The Protestant ought to recollect that his
mode of keeping Christmas Day is only a small part of the old
festival as it yet exists amongst the followers of the Romish
Church. Theirs is the remnant of the old Etruscan worship of the
virgin and child." As a proof of the above, Higgins cites
Gorius's Tuscan Antiquities, where may be seen the figure of an
old Goddess with her child in her arms, the inscription being in
Etruscan characters. "No doubt the Romish Church would have
claimed her for a Madonna, but most unluckily she has her name,
Nurtia, in Etruscan letters, on her arm, after the Etruscan
practice."
From the monuments of Etruria the fact is observed that descent
and the rights of succession were traced in the female line, a
condition of society which indicates the high position which must
have been occupied by the women of that country.
In Oman is said to exist a fragment of the government of the old
Ethiopian or Cushite race. If this is true, then we may be able
to perceive at the present time something of the character of the
political institutions of this ancient nation. As no people
