ry of ordeals show how corrupt becomes the nuisance of
religious ways of deciding secular business, and how proper is our great
American principle of the separation of state and church.

CHAPTER L.

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.

The annals of ancient history are peculiarly rich in narratives of
pretension and imposition, and either owing to the greater ignorance and
credulity of mankind, or the superior skill of gifted but unscrupulous
men in those days, present a few examples that even surpass the most
remarkable products of the modern science of humbug.

One of their most surprising instances--in fact, perhaps, absolutely the
leading impostor--was the sage or charlatan (for it is difficult to
determine which) known as Apollonius Tyanaeus so called from Tyana, in
Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light
about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than
eighteen and a half centuries ago. His arrival upon this planet was
attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a
flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again,
dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say
the olden chroniclers--probably geese, every one of them--clapped their
wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter. Ushered into
the world with such surprising omens as these, young Apollonius could
not fail to make a noise himself, ere long. Sent by his doting father to
Tarsus, in Cilicia, to be educated, he found the dissipations of the
place too much for him, and soon removed to AEgae, a smaller city, at no
great distance from the other. There he adopted the doctrines of
Pythagoras, and subjected himself to the regular discipline of that
curious system whose first process was a sort of juvenile gag-law, the
pupils being required to keep perfectly silent for a period of five
years, during which time it was forbidden to utter a single word. Even
in those days, few female scholars preferred this practice, and the boys
had it all to themselves, nor were they by any means numerous. After
this probation was over, they were enjoined to speak and argue with
moderation.

At AEgae there stood a temple dedicated to AEsculapius, who figured on
earth as a great physician and compounder of simples, and after death
was made a god. The edifice was much larger and more splendid than the
Brandreth House on Broadway, although we have no record of AEs