dess), and Apollo, corresponding to Crishna (the
Sun, the Saviour).[549:4] Another name for the Sun among those people
was _Bacchus_. An Orphic verse, referring to the Sun, says, "he is
called Dionysos (a name of Bacchus) because he is carried with a
circular motion through the immensely extended heavens."[549:5]

Dr. Prichard, in his "Analysis of Egyptian Mythology,"[549:6] speaking
of the ancient Greeks and Romans, says:

"That the worship of the _powers of nature_, mitigated,
indeed, and embellished, constituted the foundation of the
Greek and Roman religion, will not be disputed by any person
who surveys the fables of the Olympian Gods with a more
penetrating eye than that of a mere antiquarian."

M. De Coulanges, speaking of them, says:

"The _Sun_, which gives fecundity; the _Earth_, which
nourishes; the _Clouds_, by turns beneficent and
destructive,--_such were the different powers of which they
could make gods_. But from each one of these elements
thousands of gods were created; because the same physical
agent, _viewed under different aspects_, received from men
different names. The Sun, for example, was called in one place
_Hercules_ (the glorious); in another, _Phoebus_ (the shining);
and still again, _Apollo_ (he who drives away night or evil);
one called him _Hyperion_ (the elevated being); another,
_Alexicacos_ (the beneficent); and in the course of time
groups of men, who had given these various names to the
brilliant luminary, _no longer saw that they had the same
god_."[549:7]

Richard Payne Knight says:

"The primitive religion of the _Greeks_, like that of all
other nations not enlightened by _Revelation_, appears to have
been _elementary_, and to have consisted in an indistinct
worship of the SUN, the MOON, the STARS, the EARTH, and the
WATERS, or rather, the spirits supposed to preside over these
bodies, and to direct their motions, and regulate their modes
of existence. Every river, spring or mountain had its local
genius, or peculiar deity; and as men naturally endeavored to
obtain the favor of their gods by such means as they feel best
adapted to win their own, the first worship consisted in
offering to them certain portions of whatever they held to be
most valuable. At the same time, the regular motions of the
heavenly bodies, the