ng, giving
diametrically opposite interpretations of the same mystical narrative,
and though this may be an advance on bald physical literalism, it is by
no means encouraging to the instructed and philosophical mind.

If the Deity is no respecter of persons, times, or nations, and if no
age is left without witness of the Divine, it would seem to be in
accordance with the fitness of things that all religions in their purity
are one in essence, no matter how overgrown with error they may have
become through the ignorance of man. If, again, the root of true
Religion is one, and the nature of the Soul and of the inner
constitution of things is identical in all climes and times, as far as
its _main features_ are concerned, no matter what terminology, allegory,
and symbology may be employed to describe it; and not only this, but if
it be true that such subjective things are as potent facts in human
consciousness as any that exist, as indeed is evidenced by the
unrivalled influence such things have had on human hearts and actions
throughout the history of the world--then we must consider that an
interpretation that fits only one system and is found entirely
unsuitable to the rest, is no part of universal religion, and is due
rather to the ingenuity of the interpreter than to a discovery of any
law of subjective nature. The method of comparative religion alone can
give us any certainty of correct interpretation, and a refusal to
institute such a comparison should invalidate the reliability of all
such enquiries.

Now Simon is reported to have endeavoured to find an inner meaning in
scriptural narratives and mythologies, and against this method we can
have nothing to say; it is only when a man twists the interpretation to
suit his own prejudices that danger arises. Simon, however, is shown to
have appealed to the various sacred literatures known in his time, an
eclectic and theosophical method, and one that cannot very well be
longer set on one side even in our own days.

The primitive church was not so forgetful of symbology as are the
majority of the Christian faith to-day. One of the commonest
representations of primitive Christian art was that of the "Four
Rivers." As the Rev. Professor Cheetham tells us:

We find it repeated over and over again in the catacombs, either in
frescoes or in the sculptured ornaments of sarcophagi, and
sometimes on the bottoms of glass cups which have been discovered
ther