was the cause of an
abundant supply of water and rain; while in a Japanese fairy-tale the
moon is made to rule over the blue waste of the sea with its
multitudinous salt waters. The horticultural superstitions about sowing
and planting according to the age of the moon is, no doubt, a product of
the fusion of the meteorological superstition and that of the old-world
belief in Luna being the goddess of reproduction.

Any who have still doubts on the meteorological question cannot do
better than refer to a letter of Professor Nichol's--once Professor of
Astronomy in the University of Glasgow--which is quoted in The Book of
Days. He asserts positively, as the result of scientific observation,
that no relation whatever exists between the moon and the weather.

But does any exist between the moon and the brain? 'Whom the gods would
destroy, they first make mad'; and the moon was supposed to be the
instrument--nay, still is, as the very word 'lunacy' implies. The old
astrologers used to say that she governed the brain, stomach, bowels,
and left eye of the male, and the right eye of the female. Some such
influences were evidently believed in by the Jews, as witness Psalm
cxxi.: 'The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.' It
may be remarked that Dr. Forbes Winslow is not very decided in
dismissing the theory of the influence of the moon on the insane. He
says it is purely speculative, but he does not controvert it. The
subject is, however, too large to enter upon here. Whether or not it be
true that 'when the moon's in the full then wit's on the wane,' it
certainly is not true, as appears to be believed in Sussex, that the new
May Moon has power to cure scrofulous complaints.

Before leaving the subject, it is well to mention a remarkable
coincidence to which Mr. Harley draws attention. In China, where
moon-worship largely prevails, during the festival of Yue-Ping, which is
held during the eighth month annually, incense is burned in the temples,
cakes are made like the moon, and at full moon the people spread out
oblations and make prostrations to the planet. These cakes are
moon-cakes, and veritable offerings to the Queen of Heaven, who
represents the female principle in Chinese theology. 'If we turn now to
Jeremiah vii. 18, and read there, "The women knead dough to make cakes
to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other
gods," and remember that, according to Rashi, these cakes of the H