presence must lay those who behold him prostrate on the earth; he
desires no eagerness, no attention; he would only inspire terror.




FIRE, AND THE ORIGIN OF FIREWORKS.


In the Memoirs of the French Academy, a little essay on this subject is
sufficiently curious; the following contains the facts:--

FIREWORKS were not known to antiquity.--It is certainly a modern
invention. If ever the ancients employed fires at their festivals, it
was only for religious purposes.

Fire, in primæval ages, was a symbol of respect, or an instrument of
terror. In both these ways God manifested himself to man. In the holy
writings he compares himself sometimes to an ardent fire, to display his
holiness and his purity; sometimes he renders himself visible under the
form of a burning bush, to express himself to be as formidable as a
devouring fire: again, he rains sulphur; and often, before he speaks, he
attracts the attention of the multitude by flashes of lightning.

Fire was worshipped as a divinity by several idolaters: the Platonists
confounded it with the heavens, and considered it as the divine
intelligence. Sometimes it is a symbol of majesty.--God walked (if we
may so express ourselves) with his people, preceded by a pillar of fire;
and the monarchs of Asia, according to Herodotus, commanded that such
ensigns of their majesty should be carried before them. These fires,