of serpents. In agreement with which, it is said that all other serpents acknowledge the superiority of the basilisk, by flying its presence, and hiding from its sight. This serpent is supposed te live longer than any other. The ancient heathen have therefore pronounced it immortal, and placed it among the number of their gods. This species of serpent, it appears, is still found in the mountains of India, growing to a great size, covered with scales, resplendant with burnished gold, having a kind of beard hanging from their lower jaw, which renders their aspect exceedingly frightful, while they have a cry, shrill and fearful," a circumstance attending no other serpent in being, as the voice of the serpent species, except this, is but a hiss. The trait which distinguishes this dreadful serpent as belonging to the basilisk family, is its crown of bright yellow," growing on its head in the manner of the dung bill cock, "with a protuberance projecting out beside it as red as a burning coal." (See the plate.)

There are other serpents of India which are very dreadful, among which are the great li-boa and anaconda, the real drag. ons of the ancients. "To these serpents rites were devised, temples built to their honor, and priests appointed to conduct the ceremonies of their worship. These miserable idolators, appeared before the altars of their serpent deities in gorgeous vestments, their heads arrayed with real serpents, or with the figures of serpents, embroidered on their tiaras, while with frantic exclamations they cried out, Eva! Eva! which exclamation is thought by some to have been in evident allusion, to the triumph, the old serpent, the devil, obtained over our first mother Eve. In consequence of this, some do not doubt, but the snake was indeed, the very instrument of Satan; and in pursuance of this idea they suppose the evil spirit was permitted to insult our fallen race, by exalting the serpent, his chosen instrument in accomplishing our ruin, to the first place among the deities of the heathen world, and to be reverenced by the most sober and solemn acts of worship. The figures of serpents adorned the portals of the proudest temples of the east: the serpent was a very common symbol of the sun, and is represented biting its own tail with its body formed in a circle, in order to indicate the ordinary course of this luminary, and under this form, it was an emblem of both time and eternity. A serpent was the symbol of medicine, and of the gods which presided over it, as of Apollo and Esculapius. In most of the uncient rites is found some allusion to the serpent under the titles of Ob, Ops, Python, &c. In the orgies of Bacchus, says Bryant, the persons who partook of the ceremonies, used to carry serpents in their hands, and with horrid screams call out Eva, Eva; being according to the author just named, the same as Epha, or Opha, which the Greeks rendered Ophis, denoting a serpent; but having no allusion to Eve as supposed by some.

These ceremonies, and this serpent worship, began among the

Magi, who were the sons of Cush, the children of Ham, the son of Noah, and by them was propagated in various parts of the world. Wherever this people founded any place of worship, and introduced their rites, there was generally some horrid story of a serpent. There was a legend of a serpent at Colchis, in Egypt, at Thebes, in the same country, and at other places. The Greeks called Apollo himself, Pythian, (the destroyer of a monstrous serpent bred in the mud of the deluge,) which is the same as oupis, or oub, and is a serpent. In Egypt there was a serpent named Thermuthis, which was looked upon as very sacred, the likeness of which the natives are said to have used as a royal tiara, with which they ornamented the statues of Isis, their ox god. The kings of Egypt wore high bonnets terminating in a round ball, surrounded with figures of asps; their priests also had the figures of serpents on their bonnets," which they wore in the temples of their gods.

"Abaddon, the destroyer, mentioned in Rev. ix. 11, as a name of the devil, is supposed by Mr. Bryant to have been the name of the ophite, or snake god, with whose worship the world had been long infested. This worship began among the people of Chaldea, who built the city of Ophis, [or snake city] on the river Tigris, and were greatly addicted to divination, and the worship of serpents. From Chaldea this worship passed into Egypt, where the serpent deity was called Canoph, Caneph, and C'neph. It also had the name of Ob, or Oub, and was the same as Basilisk, or Basiliscue, the same as the Egyptian Thermuthis, and made use of by way of ornament to the statues of their gods. As the worship of the serpent began among the sons of Cush," the father of the African or Negro nations, the descendants of Ham, "Mr. Bryant conjectures that from thence they were denominated Ethiopians, and Athiopians, from Ath-ope, or Athopes, the god whom they worshipped, and not from their complexion. The Ethiopians brought their rites into Greece, and called the island where they first established themselves, Elophia Solis Serpentis insula; the same with Euboea or Ouboia, that is, the Serpent island, or where the ophis, or snakes, were worshipped. The same learned writer discovers traces of the serpent worship among the Hyperboreans, at Rhodes, in what is now called France, named Ophiusa, in Phrygia, and upon the Hellespont, in the island of Cyprus, in Crete, among the Athenians, in the name of Cecrops, among the natives of Thebes, in Batia, among the Lacedemonians, in Italy, in Syria, &c. and in the names of many places, as well as people, where the Ophites settled.

One of the earliest heresies introduced into the Christian church was that of the Ophites who held serpents as emblematical of supernatural power, the traits of which are still seen on many of their medals, the relics of Gnosticism, which are still extant,

specimens of which are shown toward the close of this work, in fac similie.

The form assumed, or animal used by the tempter, when he seduced our first parents, has been handed down in the traditions of the most ancient nations; and though animals of the serpent tribes were generally worshipped by the pagans, as symbols of the agathademon, they were likewise considered the types or figures of the evil being. One of the most remarkable accounts of the primeval tempter, under the shape of a serpent, occurs in the Zendavesta of the ancient Persians, a book on theology and the worship of the gods. The dragon, or Ah-riman of the Persians, and the malignant serpent Caliga of Hindoo theology, appear to be closely allied. This dragon of the Persians is rep. resented as the decided enemy of the mediatorial god, whom he persecutes with the utmost fury: though, as the Zendavesta teaches, he is finally to be vanquished by his celestial opponent, the mediatorial god." But from whom did the Persians derive their idea of a mediator? We answer, from Melchisadec, the son of Noah.

"The serpent Typhon, of the Egyptians, who is sometimes identified with the ocean, because the deluge was esteemed as the work of the evil being, and the serpent Python, or Apolyon, of the Greeks, who is evidently the same as that of the Egyptians, appear to have the same origin, which was a tradition of the form which Satan assumed when in Paradisc. Perhaps also the belief that the serpent Python or Typhon was once oracular, or had a human voice, which caused the so frequent use of serpents in their rites of divination, arose from a tradition of the vocal responses which the tempter gave to Eve, under the borrowed form of the serpent. We may still ascribe to the same source, that rebellious serpent, whose treason seems to have been so well remembered among the inhabitants of Syria. Pherecydes, a native of Syria, bestows upon him the Greek name of Ophioneus, or the serpent god; yet extends his view of him, under the name of Ophioneus, as being the prince of those evil spirits who once contended with the supreme god, Cronus, who cast them out of heaven. Their happiness being thus justly forfeited, they henceforth were plunged into the depths of Tartarus, in the fiery bowels of the deep, hateful and hating each other.

From Syria and the east, this history passed into Greece, mingled, however, with allusions to the deluge. The same evil being, in the same form, appears again in the mythology of the Goths, or Sythians. We are told by the ancient scalds, or bards, that the evil being, whom they denominate Loke, unites great personal beauty with a malignant and inconstant nature; surpassing all creatures in the depths of his cunning and perfidy. Here the primitive glory and majesty of Satan, before the linea