, the daughter of Tiresias, who was
sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years
before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among
them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the
mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and
finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were
burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there
are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most
transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and
statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever
were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and
desperate old maids, who turned so sour-tempered that their friends had
to drive them off to live by themselves, and who, under these
circumstances, went to work and wrote books.

I must crowd in here a word or two about the Auguries and the Augurs.
These gentlemen were a sort of Roman priests, who were accustomed to
foretell future events, decide on coming good or bad fortune, whether it
would do to go on with the elections, to begin any enterprise or not,
etc., by means of various signs. These were thunder; the way any birds
happened to fly; the way that the sacred chickens ate; the appearance of
the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a
long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful
people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that
Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur
could look another in the face without laughing.

It is humiliating to reflect how long and how extensively such barefaced
and monstrous humbugs as these have maintained unquestioned authority
over almost the whole race of man. Nor has humanity, by any means,
escaped from such debasing slavery now; for millions and millions of men
still believe and practice forms and ceremonies even more absurd, if
possible, than the Mysteries, Oracles, and Auguries.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--FETISHISM.--OBI.--VAUDOUX.--INDIAN
POWWOWS.--LAMAISM.--REVOLVING PRAYERS.--PRAYING TO DEATH.

A scale of superstition and religious beliefs of to-day, arranged from
the lowest to the highest, would show many curious coincidences with
another scale, which should trace the history of superstitions and
religious beliefs backward i