pathetic prayer.

It tells of the migration of a race, over the desolated world, during
the Age of Darkness. And we will find something, hereafter, very much
like it, in the Book of Job.

{p. 233}

CHAPTER IX.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE SUN.

A GREAT solar-myth underlies all the ancient mythologies. It
commemorates the death and resurrection of the sun. It signifies the
destruction of the light by the clouds, the darkness, and the
eventual return of the great luminary of the world.

The Syrian Adonis, the sun-god, the Hebrew Tamheur, and the Assyrian
Du-Zu, all suffered a sudden and violent death, disappeared for a
time from the sight of men, and were at last raised from the dead.

The myth is the primeval form of the resurrection.

All through the Gothic legends runs this thought--the battle of the
Light with the Darkness; the temporary death of the Light, and its
final triumph over the grave. Sometimes we have but a fragment of the
story.

In the Saxon Beowulf we have Grendel, a terrible monster, who comes
to the palace-hall at midnight, and drags out the sleepers and sucks