gift of Wisdom, or Minerva, and who when
created was garlanded with flowers as the crown of creation, became, in
course of time, an accursed and wicked thing who must henceforth cover
herself with leaves to hide her shame. Tertullian, who, with the rest
of the early fathers in the Christian church, had imbibed the latter
doctrine concerning her, could not believe the tradition set forth by
Hesiod; therefore Pandora was a myth, while the corrupted fable, that
of Eve as the tempter, was accepted as a natural representation of
womanhood.

When woman was created, "all the gods conferred a gifted grace."

"Round her fair brow the lovely-tressed Hours
A garland twined of Spring's purpureal flowers:
The whole attire Minerva's graceful art
Disposed, adjusted, form'd to every part."(99)

99) Hesiod, Works and Days.

Later, however, Pandora herself becomes the pourer forth of ills on the
head of defenceless man.

CHAPTER XI. FIRE AND PHALLIC WORSHIP.

"Know, first a spirit with an active flame
Fills, feeds, and animates the mighty frame;
Runs through the watery worlds and fields of air,
The ponderous Earth and depths of Heav'n and there
Burns in the Sun and Moon, and every brilliant Star
Thus mingling in the mass, the general soul
Lives in its parts and agitates the whole."

Although earth, air, water, and the sun were long venerated as objects
of worship, as containing the life principle, in process of time it is
observed that fire attracted the highest regard of human beings, and on
their altars the sacred flame, said to have been kindled from heaven,
was kept burning uninterruptedly from year to year, and from age to age,
by bends of priests "whose special duty it was to see that the sacred
flame was never extinguished." The office of the vestal virgins in
Rome was to preserve the holy fire. The Egyptians, and in fact all the
earlier civilized nations, knew that force proceeds from the sun, hence
the frequent appearance of this orb among their symbols of life. Indeed
there is not a country on the globe in which, at some time, divine
honors have not been paid to fire and to light.

The Hindoos, "believing fire to be the essence of all active power in
Nature, kept perpetual lamps burning in the innermost recesses of
their pagodas and temples, and in the sacred edifices of the Greeks and
Barbarians fires were preserved for the same reason."