the genial powers of Nature."

To which Higgins adds: "And I maintain that it means the figure which
is often found in collections of ancient statues, most beautifully
executed, and called the Hermaphrodite."

As in the old language there was no neuter gender, the gods must always
appear either as female or male. For apparent reasons, in all the
translations, through the pronouns and adjectives used, the more
important ancient deities have all been made to appear as males.

By at least two ancient writers Jupiter is called the Mother of the
Gods. In reference to a certain Greek appellation, Bryant observes that
it is a masculine name for a feminine deity--a name which is said to be
a corruption of Mai, the Hindoo Queen of Heaven.

In process of time, as the world became more and more masculinized, so
important did it become that the male should occupy the more exalted
place in the Deity, that even the Great Mother of the Gods, as we have
seen, is represented as male.

The androgynous or plural form of the ancient Phoenician God Aleim,
the Creator referred to in the opening chapter of Genesis, is clearly
apparent. This God, speaking to his counterpart, Wisdom, the female
energy, says: "Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness,"
and accordingly males and females are produced. By those whose duty
it has been in the past to prove that the Deity here represented is
composed only of the masculine attributes, we are given to understand
that God was really "speaking to himself," and that in his divine
cogitations excessive modesty dictated the "polite form of speech"; he
did not, therefore, say exactly what he meant, or at least did not mean
precisely what he said. We have to bear in mind, however, that as man
had not at that time been created, if there were no female element
present, this excess of politeness on the part of the "Lord" was wholly
lost. Surely, in a matter involving such an enormous stretch of power
as the creation of man independently of the female energy, we would
scarcely expect to find the high and mighty male potentate which was
subsequently worshipped as the Lord of the Israelites laying aside his
usual "I the Lord," simply out of deference to the animals.

In Christian countries, during the past eighteen hundred years, the
greatest care has been exercised to conceal the fact that sun-worship
underlies all forms of religion, and under Protestant Christianity
no pains has been spared in e