das, there once existed
a beautiful world, which was destroyed by fire. Another was created,
which, with all its inhabitants save a giant and his three sons, who
were saved in a ship, were destroyed by water. With this triad, which
originally sprang from a mysterious cow, the new world began. This new
world, which represents the present system, will in time be devoured by
flames; but another earth will arise from the ocean,--an earth far more
beautiful than this, upon which all kinds of grain and delicious fruits
will grow without cultivation. Veda and Vile will be there, for the
conflagration will have been powerless to destroy them. While the flames
are devouring all things, two human beings, a female and a male, will
be concealed under a hill, where they will feed upon dew, and will
propagate so abundantly that the earth will soon be peopled with a new
race of beings. During the catastrophe, the sun will be devoured by
a wolf, but before her death she will give birth to a daughter as
resplendent as herself, who will go in the same path formerly trodden by
her mother.

The doctrines of the Gothic philosophers, as they appear in the Eddas,
concerning the eternity of matter, the renewal or succession of worlds,
and reincarnation are the same as those taught by Pythagoras, the
Stoics, and other Greek schools of thought.

Brahme or Vishnu, resting on the bottom of the sea--a goddess who
was symbolized by the self-generating lotus--was in later ages the
mysterious Cow of the Goths.

After the natural truths concealed beneath their religious symbolism
were wholly forgotten, and human nature through the over-stimulation
of the animal instincts had become corrupted, Adam and Eve, names which
doubtless for ages represented the two fecundating principles throughout
Nature, with their sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth, comprehended the
god-idea. The fact has been observed that just six hundred years from
the creation of Adam, or at the close of the cycle, Noah appears with
his three sons to save or perpetuate the race.

It is now believed that this account of Noah and his three sons is an
allegory beneath which are concealed the religious doctrines, or perhaps
I should say, the philosophical speculations of an older race. The God
of the ancients was identified with the life of man individually and
with that of mankind collectively. As men die each day, and as every day
men are born, this Deity is said to die and to be renewed each