w, "By man in
this stage of progress everything was regarded as having life, and being
more or less a deity." Indeed, sacred rivers appear in the very earliest
mythologies which have been recovered, and lingered among the last
vestiges of heathenism long after the advent of a purer creed. As, too,
it has been remarked,[8] "Either as direct objects of worship, or as
forming the temple under whose solemn shadow other and remoter deities
might be adored, there is no part of the world in which trees have not
been regarded with especial reverence.

'In such green palaces the first kings reigned;
Slept in their shade, and angels entertained.
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And by frequenting sacred shades grew wise.'

Even Paradise itself, says Evelyn, was but a kind of 'nemorous temple or
sacred grove,' planted by God himself, and given to man _tanquam primo
sacerdoti_; and he goes on to suggest that the groves which the
patriarchs are recorded to have planted in different parts of Palestine
may have been memorials of that first tree-shaded paradise from which
Adam was expelled."

Briefly noticing the antecedent history of plant-worship, it would seem
to have lain at the foundation of the old Celtic creed, although few
records on this point have come down to us.[9] At any rate we have
abundant evidence that this form of belief held a prominent place in the
religion of these people, allusions to which are given by many of the
early classical writers. Thus the very name of Druidism is a proof of
the Celtic addiction to tree-worship, and De Brosses,[10] as a further
evidence that this was so, would derive the word kirk, now softened into
church, from _quercus_, an oak; that species having been peculiarly
sacred. Similarly, in reviewing the old Teutonic beliefs, we come across
the same references to tree-worship, in many respects displaying little
or no distinction from that of the Celts. In explanation of this
circumstance, Mr. Keary[11] suggests that, "The nature of the Teutonic
beliefs would apply, with only some slight changes, to the creed of the
predecessors of the Germans in Northern and Western Europe. Undoubtedly,
in prehistoric days, the Germans and Celts merged so much one into the
other that their histories cannot well be distinguished."

Mr. Fergusson in his elaborate researches has traced many indications of
tree-adoration in Germany, noticing their continuance in the Christian
period, a