Every one knows how thoroughly Romanist is theuse of the rosary; and how the devotees of Rome mechanically tell their prayers upon theirbeads. The rosary, however, is no invention of the Papacy. It is of the highest antiquity,and almost universally found among Pagan nations. The rosary was used as a sacredinstrument among the ancient Mexicans. It is commonly employed among the Brahmins ofHindustan; and in the Hindoo sacred books reference is made to it again and again. Thus,in an account of the death of Sati, the wife of Shiva, we find the rosary introduced:"On hearing of this event, Shiva fainted from grief; then, having recovered, hehastened to the banks of the river of heaven, where he beheld lying the body of hisbeloved Sati, arrayed in white garments, holding a rosary in her hand, and glowingwith splendour, bright as burnished gold." In Thibet it has been used from timeimmemorial, and among all the millions in the East that adhere to the Buddhist faith. Thefollowing, from Sir John F. Davis, will show how it is employed in China: "From theTartar religion of the Lamas, the rosary of 108 beads has become a part of the ceremonialdress attached to the nine grades of official rank. It consists of a necklace of stonesand coral, nearly as large as a pigeon's egg, descending to the waist, and distinguishedby various beads, according to the quality of the wearer. There is a small rosary ofeighteen beads, of inferior size, with which the bonzes count their prayers andejaculations exactly as in the Romish ritual. The laity in China sometimes wear thisat the wrist, perfumed with musk, and give it the name of Heang-choo, or fragrantbeads." In Asiatic Greece the rosary was commonly used, as may be seen from the imageof the Ephesian Diana. In Pagan Rome the same appears to have been the case. The necklaceswhich the Roman ladies wore were not merely ornamental bands about the neck, but hung downthe breast, just as the modern rosaries do; and the name by which they were calledindicates the use to which they were applied. "Monile," the ordinary wordfor a necklace, can have no other meaning than that of a "Remembrancer." Now,whatever might be the pretence, in the first instance, for the introduction of such"Rosaries" or "Remembrancers," the very idea of such a thing isthoroughly Pagan. * It supposes that a certain number of prayers must be regularly goneover; it overlooks the grand demand which God makes for the heart, and leads those who usethem to believe that form and routine are everything, and that "they must be heardfor their much speaking."
* "Rosary" itself seems to be from the Chaldee "Ro," "thought," and "Shareh," "director."
In the Church of Rome anew kind of devotion has of late been largely introduced, in which the beads play animportant part, and which shows what new and additional strides in the direction of theold Babylonian Paganism the Papacy every day is steadily making. I refer to the"Rosary of the Sacred Heart." It is not very long since the worship of the"Sacred Heart" was first introduced; and now, everywhere it is the favouriteworship. It was so in ancient Babylon, as is evident from the Babylonian system as itappeared in Egypt. There also a "Sacred Heart" was venerated. The"Heart" was one of the sacred symbols of Osiris when he was born again, andappeared as Harpocrates, or the infant divinity, * borne in the arms of his mother Isis.
* The name Harpocrates, as shown by Bunsen, signifies "Horus, the child."
Therefore, the fruit of the Egyptian Persea waspeculiarly sacred to him, from its resemblance to the "HUMAN HEART." Hence thisinfant divinity was frequently represented with a heart, or the heart-shaped fruit of thePersea, in one of his hands. The following extract, from John Bell's criticism on theantiques in the Picture Gallery of Florence, will show that the boyish divinity had beenrepresented elsewhere also in ancient times in the same manner. Speaking of a statue ofCupid, he says it is "a fair, full, fleshy, round boy, in fine and sportive action, tossingback a heart." Thus the boy-god came to be regarded as the "god of theheart," in other words, as Cupid, or the god of love. To identify this infantdivinity, with his father "the mighty hunter," he was equipped with "bowand arrows"; and in the hands of the poets, for the amusement of the profane vulgar,this sportive boy-god was celebrated as taking aim with his gold-tipped shafts at thehearts of mankind. His real character, however, as the above statement shows, and as wehave seen reason already to conclude, was far higher and of a very different kind. He wasthe woman's seed. Venus and her son Cupid, then, were none other than the Madonna and thechild. Looking at the subject in this light, the real force and meaning of the languagewill appear, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Venus, when addressing the youthfulCupid:--
"My son, my strength,whose mighty power alone
Controls the thunderer on his awful throne,
To thee thy much afflicted mother flies,
And on thy succour and thy faith relies."
From what we have seen already as to the powerand glory of the Goddess Mother being entirely built on the divine characterattributed to her Son, the reader must see how exactly this is brought out, whenthe Son is called "THE STRENGTH" of his Mother. As the boy-god, whose symbol wasthe heart, was recognised as the god of childhood, this very satisfactorilyaccounts for one of the peculiar customs of the Romans. Kennett tells us, in his Antiquities,that the Roman youths, in their tender years, used to wear a golden ornament suspendedfrom their necks, called bulla, which was hollow, and heart-shaped. Barker,in his work on Cilicia, while admitting that the Roman bulla was heart-shaped,further states, that "it was usual at the birth of a child to name it after somedivine personage, who was supposed to receive it under his care"; but that the"name was not retained beyond infancy, when the bulla was given up." Who solikely to be the god under whose guardianship the Roman children were put, as the godunder one or other of his many names whose express symbol they wore, and who, while he wasrecognised as the great and mighty war-god, who also exhibited himself in hisfavourite form as a little child?
The veneration of the "sacred heart"seems also to have extended to India, for there Vishnu, the Mediatorial god, in one of hisforms, with the mark of the wound in his foot, in consequence of which he died, andfor which such lamentation is annually made, is represented as wearing a heartsuspended on his breast. It is asked, How came it that the "Heart" became therecognised symbol of the Child of the great Mother? The answer is, "The Heart"in Chaldee is "BEL"; and as, at first, after the check given to idolatry, almostall the most important elements of the Chaldean system were introduced under a veil, sounder that veil they continued to be shrouded from the gaze of the uninitiated, after thefirst reason--the reason of fear--had long ceased to operate. Now, the worship of the"Sacred Heart" was just, under a symbol, the worship of the "Sacred Bel,"that mighty one of Babylon, who had died a martyr for idolatry; for Harpocrates, or Horus,the infant god, was regarded as Bel, born again. That this was in very deed the case, thefollowing extract from Taylor, in one of his notes to his translation of the OrphicHymns, will show. "While Bacchus," says he, was "beholdinghimself" with admiration "in a mirror, he was miserably torn to pieces by theTitans, who, not content with this cruelty, first boiled his members in water, andafterwards roasted them in the fire; but while they were tasting his flesh thus dressed,Jupiter, excited by the steam, and perceiving the cruelty of the deed, hurled his thunderat the Titans, but committed his members to Apollo, the brother of Bacchus, that theymight be properly interred. And this being performed, Dionysius [i.e., Bacchus], (whoseHEART, during his laceration, was snatched away by Minerva and preserved) by a newREGENERATION, again emerged, and he being restored to his pristine life and integrity,afterwards filled up the number of the gods." This surely shows, in a striking light,the peculiar sacredness of the heart of Bacchus; and that the regenerationof his heart has the very meaning I have attached to it--viz., the new birth or newincarnation of Nimrod or Bel. When Bel, however was born again as a child, he was, as wehave seen, represented as an incarnation of the sun. Therefore, to indicate his connectionwith the fiery and burning sun, the "sacred heart" was frequently represented asa "heart of flame." So the "Sacred Heart" of Rome is actuallyworshipped as a flaming heart, as may be seen on the rosaries devoted to thatworship. Of what use, then, is it to say that the "Sacred Heart" which Romeworships is called by the name of "Jesus," when not only is the devotion givento a material image borrowed from the worship of the Babylonian Antichrist, but when theattributes ascribed to that "Jesus" are not the attributes of the livingand loving Saviour, but the genuine attributes of the ancient Moloch or Bel?