peared
on the earth, and in the sixth man was produced. These six periods
comprehended one-half the duration of the cycle. After six more periods
had elapsed, or after the lapse of the entire cycle of twelve periods,
all creation was dissolved or drawn to the source 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