The fountain : with jets of new meanings . gion has haddevotees in all parts of the world. Until the reign ofHezekiah, the image of the serpent was worshipped bycertain tribes of Jews, during more than six hundredyears ; because they, in common with many sects ofAsia and the East, supposed the serpent to be in somemysterious manner a representation of both the crea-tive and the destroying deities. Of course, the mostignorant believers worshipped the Serpent itself, insteadof the particular deity which it was originally designedto conspicuously represent; just as, in our more en-lightened day,
The fountain : with jets of new meanings . gion has haddevotees in all parts of the world. Until the reign ofHezekiah, the image of the serpent was worshipped bycertain tribes of Jews, during more than six hundredyears ; because they, in common with many sects ofAsia and the East, supposed the serpent to be in somemysterious manner a representation of both the crea-tive and the destroying deities. Of course, the mostignorant believers worshipped the Serpent itself, insteadof the particular deity which it was originally designedto conspicuously represent; just as, in our more en-lightened day, the most ignorant among Christiansrevere and worship the cross, the church, the Bible,and other images, instead of the life that led to theMartyrdom, the Truth, the Spirit, and Nature, whichare the only real realities worthy of all adoration andobedience. Sincere and true worship may be outward and ob-jective, or interior and subjective; but invariably the act is in accordance with the real moral and intellect-12 178 JETS OF NEW THE IDOL OP MANY. ual growth of the worshipper. False worship, on theother hand, is in accordance with the individualsreligious instructions, social temptations, and govern-ing circumstances. The kind-hearted lover of thenoble horse is sincerely filled with admiration (possiblywith emotions amounting to adora-tion), for the majestic and full-blood-ed beauty. While the purely intel-lectualist, the man devoted to the won-ders of antiquity, of research in sci-ence, glorying over and feasting uponthe great wealth of literature—such aman is a devotee at the shrine of Ge-nius—and hooks, instead of runningbrooks, are his supreme and all-ab-sorbing attraction. A distinguished writer once daredto express in verse the thoughts andmeditations of every rational a style of unaffected simplicity, which is onlyequalled by the plainness of his speech, he wrote : I stood at the door of Gods temple one day, And gazed at the throng as they enter
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