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JEHOVAH, A GOD OF THE EI.EMENTS. 505
that their Ivord God, with ''smoke" coming ''otit of his nostrils and
pre out of his mouth, . . . rode upon a cherub and did fly; and he
was see7i tipon the wings of the windT'^ The expressions of the two
nations are either both figures of speech, or both superstitions. We
think they are neither; but only arise from a keen sense of oneness
with Nature, and a perception of the mysterious and the intelligent
behind every natural phenomenon, which the moderns no longer
possess. Nor was it "superstitious" in the Greek Pagans to listen
to the oracle of Delphi, when, at the approach of the fleet of Xerxes,
that oracle advised them to "sacrifice to the winds," if the same has
to be regarded as divine worship in the Israelites, who sacrificed as
often to the wind and also especially to the fire. Do they not say that
their "God is a consuming fire,"t who appeared generally «5 fire and
"encompassed by fire" and did not Elijah seek for the "Lord" in
the "great strong wind, and in the earthquake" Do not the Christians
repeat the same after them Do not they, moreover, sacrifice to
this day, to the same "God of Wind and Water" They do; because
special prayers for
rain, dry weather, trade-winds and the calming of
storms on the seas, exist to this hour in the prayer-books of the three
Christian Churches; and the several hundred sects of the Protestant
religion offer them to their God upon every threat of calamity.
The
fact that they are no more answered by Jehovah, than they were,
probably, by Jupiter Pluvius, does not alter the fact of these prayers
being addressed to the Power, or Powers, supposed to rule over the
Elements, or of these Powers being identical in Paganism and Christianity
; or have we to believe that such prayers are crass idolatry and
absurd "superstition" ^w/y when addressed by a Pagan to his "idol,"
and that the same superstition is suddenly transformed into "praiseworthy
piety" and "religion" whenever the name of the celestial
addressee is changed But the tree is known by its fruit. And the
fruit of the Christian tree being no better than that of the tree of
Paganism, why should the former command more reverence than the
latter
Thus, when we are told by the Chevalier Drach, a converted Jew,
and by the Marquis de Mirville, a Roman Catholic fanatic of the
French aristocracy, that in Hebrevv' "lightning" is a synonym of
"fur}'," and is always handled by the "evil" Spirit; that Jupiter
Fulgur or Fulgurans is also called by the Christians Elicius, and
• II Sam., xxii. 9, n. t Deul., iv. 24.