The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-24 00:00:00

THE .RAINBOTV OF THE COTENANT.

I begin to wonder who was the first man to
analyse the rainbow and arrive at a clear idea of
the causes which combine in its production. The
falling shower and the direct light of the sun or
moon must, from the first unfolding of this won
drous revelation, have been seen to be its primary
elements. The allegory of the winds, in the 23d
book of the Iliad, indicates more than a superficial
knowledge of this grand phenomenon, and Virgil,
in the tEneid, almost antedates the philosophy of
Descartes and Newton, and Martial was not far
from a scientific definition. Aristotle believed him-
self to be the first who had seen a lunar rainbow,
the loveliest of all aerial spectacles, except on those
rare occasions, when the aurora borealis displays its
darting flushes ruby and emerald, amethyst, in this
climate. But Pliny knew almost as much as we
do about it—certainly as to its primal causes—
as he expressed it, " Quod ergo iris sit refractio
aspectus est ad solem manifestum est," and Plutarch
cites it as an index of the knowledge of his
time. Whatever may have been the thoughts of
Adam, when the sunshine first resolved into pris-
matic colours, in an arch expanding over the region
of the happy garden, those of Noah might well be
more profound, for the rainbow became a part of his
life, and through him a pledge of divine mercy to
the end of the world. " I do set my bow in the
clouds"—marvellous utterance of a Father co
derate of His children's feathers. Those words
possess me, as I look out over the grey sky where
the rainbow glowed a few minutes since, and they
seem to me to have all the force of an authority
for research into the mind of God, the mind of
man, and the ways of nature. The cause of
the awful devastation of the globe is for ever
rendered beautiful dutiful; the descending shower, which
for forty days continued to submerge the offenders
henceforth cease to inspirey
me in listless
against divine justice, seems to be woven into a
robe of divers colours, and made pre-eminently
beautiful, that they may
dread. The fleecy clouds that held
reverie half an hour since, and that are now
ae
i. friends,n b osv
t at
kh
ea
nt
dim-
ming into ashy hues, seem to be impressed. with
similar evanescence and unsubstantiality, that man
may look upon them henceforth
as hisantare And how
once were the destroyers
deep a hold has that post_odfuhuivsi
of the mind of man, It
must
fact we find cropping in out .be records of that
gies, as in the carrying
of of
the rainbow-coloured
the old mytholo-
fans in the procession A
nation of the rainbow and the dove in pis ; and the combi-
nation
hiero-
glyphics and mythological rites. Bryant cites the
names of the two attendants on Cleopata, Eiras, and
Charmion, as the Rainbow and the Dove, as indica.
ce, and bring dovm to a later
in Egyptian history
a remembrance of the circum-
stances under which the earth was again peopled.
The
rainbow was certainly the most renowned of
A rkite emblems, and 1 know why Hesiod should
designate it "The Great Oath," except through the
prevailing power of a tradition, diving in its origin.
As such, Homer knows it well, and, in accordance
with established usage in the ancient world, he
calls it, in a hymn to Selene, the sign and intima-
tion (of divine promise) to mortals. The appeal to
it by the deity as something supericr to the secondary
gods is characteristic of Hesiod, who describes
Iris as the servant of Jove, who fetches from afar,
in a golden cup, the waters of many names,
making her the representative of covenant and of
purification. Osiris entering the ark, Deuaalion
reproving the lawlessness of the men of violence
by whom he was surrounded, Nannacus
mor '6 our
is
e
in the temple, are but versions of a history, of
which the heavens bear the best secular morial,
after the special and divine record givcn f
edification. But did Noah understand the pur-
port of the rainbow, as a key to the mysteries
of man's relations to the divine essence ? We
know not, but it is a key for all that ; and herein
we see how the discoveries of science lend help
to theology, and indicate tr
bo uths that lie at the
foundation of all harmonies, th of matter and
apirit.—llibberd's " 13rambles and Bay Leaves."