ing us all the while, never turning its back
upon us; it waits on us like a link-bearer, or lackey; is our admiring
Boswell, living and moving and having its being in the equability it
derives from attending its illustrious master. An African sage once
illustrated this philosophical principle of the greater controlling the
less, by the following fine conundrum. "Why does the dog waggle
his tail?" This problem, being beyond his auditors, was given up.
The sage made answer, "Because the dog is bigger than the tail; else
the tail would waggle the dog." It is alarming to contemplate the
effect which the moon might have upon our august earth, if it were
fourteen times larger instead of fourteen times smaller in extent of
surface. As it is, Luna's influences are so many and so mighty, that
we will require considerable space merely to set them in order, and
to substantiate them with a few facts. We believe that most, if not
all, of them, are the offspring of superstition; but we shall none the
less find them in every land, in every age. In the nineteenth century
as well as in the dark ages, in London as well as in the ends of the
earth, men of all colours and clans are found turning their faces
heavenward to read their duty and destiny in the oracular face of the
moon. Many consult their almanacks more than their Bibles, and
follow the lunar phases as their sole interpretation of the will of
God.

Among those who worship the moon as a personal deity, whether
beneficent or malign, its influences are of course welcomed or
dreaded as the manifestations of supreme power. In South America,
for example, "the Botocudos are said to give the highest rank among
the heavenly bodies to Taru, the moon, as causing thunder and
lightning and the failure of vegetables and fruits, and as even
sometimes falling to the earth, whereby many men die." [321] So, in
Africa, the emotions of the worshippers vary with their subjective
views of their god. "Negro tribes seem almost universally to greet
the new moon, whether in delight or disgust. The Guinea people
fling themselves about with droll gestures, and pretend to throw
firebrands at it; the Ashango men behold it with superstitious fear;
the Fetu negroes jumped thrice into the air with hands together and
gave thanks." [322] But even amongst men who neither personify
nor deify the moon, its dominion over the air, earth, and sea, over
human health and happiness, is held to be so all-important, that