illustrious prophet and first Druid--Abraham; and from whom our
celebrated British Druids came, who were of the same patriarchal
reformed religion, and brought the use of sacred groves to
Britain."[17]

[17] Barlow, Symbolism, p. 98.


The fact has been ascertained that in Arabia, in very ancient
times, there was a goddess named Azra who was worshipped under
the form of a tree called Samurch, and that in Yemen tree-worship
still prevails. To the date is ascribed divine honors. This
tree is said to have its regular priests, services, rites, and
festivals, and is as zealously worshipped as are the gods of any
other country. We are not informed as to whether the Jewish Tree
of Life was borrowed from the Chaldeans or the Egyptians, but, as
the significance is the same in all countries, it is of little
consequence which furnished a copy for the writer in Genesis.

In Dr. Inman's Ancient Faiths, is a drawing from the original,
by Colonel Coombs, of the "Temptation," or of the ancient
tree-and-serpent myth in Genesis. This drawing, in which it is
observed that the Jewish idea of woman as tempter is reversed,
was copied from the inner walls of a cave in Southern India. The
picture is said to be a faithful representation of the version of
the story as accepted in the East.

Of the myrtle, Payne Knight says that it "was a symbol both of
Venus and Neptune, the male and female personifications of the
productive powers of the waters, which appear to have been