The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1874-04-08
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MISCELLANY.
EAsTER SUNDAY IN ROME.

The ceremonies of the Easter week held in
Rome are not only magnificent, but are emf.
uently calculated to impress the imagination
with the sumptuousness, the grandeur, and
the power of the religion it offers to its vota.
ries 1t requires to have sonl strong in the
faith OF Christ's teachings to resist being
drawn into the vortex of ceremonial idoia
try ancient as the first records of pagan wor
ship. When the knees bowed to Baal and Il
Ashtar, the queen of heaven, similar gor
geous pomp was Instituted to celebrate til,
rites OF Ashtar, or as our Saxon ancestor
named her, Easter The Druids intro
duced her worship into Britain, and the Chris
tians finding that they could not turn the PEG
pie from paying rites to the Assyrian an,
also Chaldean goddess, chose the day to com
memorate the resurrection of the Messiah. :
1t was simply a transfer Of names To Pro
testants the day isdear for this memory only
but in Rome it is altogether another affair. Ii
the early days of Christianity this festiva
was termed Pasch; the time for holding Il
agreed not alone with the Jewish Passover
but also with the time Of the Crucifxion, be
lieved at the end of the second century te
to have been accomplished on the Esd Of
March. This festival was preceded by nc
Lent, and was by no means idolatrous in its
character. The forty days of fasting in Lent
was borrowed from the worship of the Baby.
lonian goddess. A Lent of forty days in the
Spring of the year is, according to Mr.. Lay
ards Ninevel, and Babylon, still held by
the pagan-devil-wo of Koordistan
A forty nights wailing was practiced by the
ancient Greeks as being that period of time
in which Proserpiue walled for her daughter,
Ceres. This Lent was also an indispensable
preliminary to the great annual festival in
commemoration of the death and resurrection
of Tammuz or Nimrod. In Ezekiel viii, IA.
Is, 1G, will be found not only an allusion to
this but also to the sun-worshippers. So that
in the time of the prophet the fasting and
worshipping of the sun, which seemed to be
both part of one ceremony, were in no way
acceptable to God. Humboldt Ia his MEX
lean Researches says that, in ancient Mex
leo, three days after the vernal equinox, began
or of tho "Sabean Researches states that an
Egyptian Lent of forty days was anciently
held in honor Of Osiris the Nimrod of the
Egyptians, the Tammuz of the Chaldeans, and
the Adonis of the Greeks, being the same
with Osiris. Among the pagans this Lent was
an indispensable preliminary to the great an
nual festival In commemoration of the death
and resurrection of Tammuz, which was cele-
brated by alternate weeping and rejoicing,
and which in many countries was consider
ably later than the festival instituted by the
Christians in memory of the saviour. In
Egypt the Lenten fast began in May, and, in
the Roman times in Britain, 1t was held in
April. The early Christians solemnized one
week for the passion, and held festival of
ono week for the resurrection.
At the founding bf Athens, fifteen hundred
years before the Christian era, the hot-cross
buns and the died eggs of the Chaldean East
er, or Ashtar, were then conspicuous. The
very name of the cake, boun, has, by cor
ruption, become "bun.
At Easter-tine now in England dyed eggs
are conspicuous in the shops, but in Chaldean
and Babylonian times they were prominent
objects in the unholy pagan rites. The Druids,
the high priests of Baal bore an egg as the
sacred emblem of their order In the mystic
ries of Bacchus an egg was consecrated. The
Hindoos celebrate festival of mundane
egg. The people of Japan made their sacred
eggs of brass. In China, at this hour, dyed
and painted eggs are used on several of the
festivals. The Rev. Alexander Hislop, from
whose elaborate and learned work, The Two
Babylons,' we have extracted the above infor.
nation, states that "to the banks of the Euph.
rates the origin Of the sasped egg can be die