wild forests, and although having stood
thus in solitary desolation for some 1500 years, yet there it still
grows, and is worshipped and deeply revered by more millions of our race
than any other god, prophet, or idol, which the world has ever seen."(7)

7) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p. 35.

This tree is sacred to Sakyu Mooni, is 2200 years old, and is said to be
a slip from a tree planted by Bood Gaya, one of the three former Buddhas
who, like Sakyu Mooni, visited Ceylon. Under the parent of this tree the
great prophet reposed after he had attained perfect rest, or after he
had overcome the flesh and become Buddha. It was under a bo tree that
Mai, Queen of Heaven, brought him forth, and, in fact, very many of the
most important incidents of his life are closely connected with this
sacred emblem.

In an allusion to the bo tree of Ceylon, a slip of which is said to have
been carried from India to that island by a certain priestess in the
year 307 B.C., Forlong observes:

"This wonderful idol has furnished shoots to half Asia, and every shoot
is trained as much as possible like the parent, and like it, also,
enclosed and tended. Men watch and listen for signs and sounds from this
holy tree just as the priests of Dodona did beneath their rustling oaks,
and, as many people, even of these somewhat sceptical days, still do,
beneath the pulpits of their pope, priest, or other oracle."(8)

8) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p, 36.

The sacred Ficus is worshipped in India and in many of the Polynesian
islands.

Regarding the palm, Inman assures us that it is emblematical of the
active male energy, or the continuation of existence.(9)

9) Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. ii., p. 448.

Within the legends underlying the Jewish religion, it will be remembered
that the tree appears mysteriously connected with the beginning of life
and is interwoven with the first ideas of human action and experience.
The literal sense, however, of the allegory in Genesis concerning the
woman, the tree, and the serpent, and its meaning as generally accepted
by laymen and the uneducated among the priesthood, has little in common
with its true significance as understood by the initiated.

In Vedic times, the home tree was worshipped as a god, and to the
exhilarating properties in its juice was ascribed that subtle quality
which was regarded as the life-giving, or creative, energy supposed
to reside in heat, and