avail,
for in the year 451, at the council of Ephesus, the third general
council, the decision of the Nestorians was reversed and the Virgin
Mother reinstated. Upon this subject Barlow remarks: "Well might those
who made this symbolical doctrine what it now is, at length desire to
do tardy justice to the female element, by promoting the mother to the
place once occupied by the Egyptian Neith, and crowning her Queen of
Heaven."(145) The fact will doubtless be observed, however, that by the
Romish Church the idea of the god-mother differs widely from the Queen
of Heaven--the original God of the ancients. Mary the Mother of Jesus
is not a Creator, but simply a mediator between her Son and His earthly
devotees--a doctrine only a trifle less masculine in texture than that
of an Almighty Father and his victimized son. The worship of Mary was
adopted by the so-called Christians in response to a craving in the
human heart for a recognition of those characters developed in mankind
which may be said to contain the germ of the divine. The masculine god
of the Jews was feared not loved, and his son had already been invested
with his attributes. He was all powerful, hence a mediator, a mother,
was necessary to intercede in behalf of fallen man, and this, too,
notwithstanding the fact that woman had become the "cause of evil in the
world."

145) Essays on Symbolism, p. 134.

The Great Goddess of the ancients, Perceptive Wisdom, the Deity of
giving, she who represented the purely altruistic characters developed
in mankind, and whose worship involved a scientific knowledge of the
processes of Nature, when engrafted upon the so-called Christian system,
although indicating an important step toward the recognition of the
genuine creative principles, was not understood. Although her effigies
were brought from the East and made to do duty as representations of
Mary, the Mother of Christ, a knowledge of her true significance lay
hurled beneath ages of sensuality and selfishness.

By those who have made it their business to investigate this subject, it
is observed that there is scarcely an old church in Italy in which there
is not to be found a remnant of a black virgin and child. In very many
instances these black virgins have been replaced by white ones, the
older figures having been retired to some secluded niche in the church
where they are held especially sacred by the ignorant devotees who know
absolutely nothing of their or