nt Druids of Britain. We inherit their
custom of gathering the sacred mistletoe at Yule-tide, while in our
Christmas Tree we have a remnant of the old Norse tree-worship. During
the Middle Ages the worship of trees was forbidden in France by the
ecclesiastical councils, and in England by the laws of Canute. A learned
antiquary remarks that "the English maypole decked with colored rags and
tinsel, and the merry morice-dancers (the gaily decorated May sweeps)
with the mysterious and now almost defunct personage, Jack-in-the-green,
are all but worn-out remnants of the adoration of gods in trees that
once were sacred in England."

Now the serpent and the tree were originally both symbolic of the
generative powers of nature, and they were interchangeable. Sometimes
one was employed, sometimes the other, and sometimes both. But in
that great religious reformation which took place in the faiths of the
ancient world about 600 years before the time of Christ, the serpent
was degraded, and made to stand as a symbol of Ahriman, the god of evil,
who, in the Persic religion, waged incessant war against Ormuzd, the god
of beneficence. The Persian myth of the Fall is thus rendered from the
Zendavesta by Kalisch:--

"The first couple, the parents of the human race, Meshia and Meshiane,
lived originally in purity and innocence. Perpetual happiness was
promised them by Ormuzd, the creator of every good gift, if they
persevered in their virtue. But an evil demon (Dev) was sent to them
by Ahriman, the representative of everything noxious and sinful. He
appeared unexpectedly in the form of a serpent, and gave them the fruit
of a wonderful tree, Hom, which imparted immortality and had the power
of restoring the dead to life. Thus evil inclinations entered their
hearts; all their moral excellence was destroyed. Ahriman himself
appeared wider the form of the same reptile, and completed the work of
seduction. They acknowledged him instead of Ormuzd as the creator of
everything good; and the consequence was they forfeited for ever the
eternal happiness for which they were destined."

Every reader will at once perceive how similar this is to the Hebrew
story of the Fall. The similarity is intelligible when we remember that
all the literature of the ancient Jews was put into its present form by
the learned scribes who returned with the remnant of the people from the
Babylonish captivity, and who were full of the ideas that obtained in
the Persi