Not only the ritual of fire, but also its ethics have largely survived, notably in Ireland, where it was customary to ask for fire from a priest's house. But if the priest refused, as he usually did, in order to discountenance superstition, then the fire was asked from the happiest man, _i.e._, the best living person in the parish. When lighting a candle it was customary in England to say "May the Lord send us the Light of Heaven," and when putting it out, "May the Lord renew for us the Light of Heaven". Originally the Persians worshipped the sacred fire only upon hill-tops, a custom for which Bryant acidly assigns the following reason: "The people who prosecuted this method of worship enjoyed a soothing infatuation which flattered the gloom of superstition. The eminences to which they retired were lonely and silent and seemed to be happily circumstanced for contemplation and prayer. They who frequented them were raised above the lower world and fancied that they were brought into the vicinity of the powers of the air and of the Deity, who resided in the higher regions." The Druids, like the Persians, worshipped upon hill-tops or the highest ground, doubtless because they regarded these as symbols of the Most High, and there is really nothing in the custom flattering either to gloom or superstition:-- Mountains are altars rais'd to God by hands Omnipotent, and man must worship there. On their aspiring summits _glad_ he stands And near to Heaven. If our ancestors were unable to find a convenient highland, they made an artificial mound, and such was the sacred centre or sanctuary of all tribal activities. The celebrated McAlpine laws of Scotland were promulgated from the Mote of Urr, which remarkable construction will be illustrated in a later chapter. Not only in Homeric Greece, but universally, Kings and Chiefs were once treated and esteemed as Sun-gods. "Think not," said a Maori chief to a missionary, "that I am a man, that my origin is of the earth. I come from the Heavens; my ancestors are all there; they are gods, and I shall return to them".[183] The notion of Imperial divinity is not yet dead; it was flourishing in England to Stuart times, and though the spirit may now have fled, its traces still remain in our regal ceremonial. In the Indian Code known as the Laws of Manu, the superstition is thus enunciated: "Because a King has been formed of particles of those Lords of the gods, he therefore surpasses all created beings in lustre, and like the Sun he burns eyes and hearts; nor can anybody on earth even gaze at him. Through his power he is Fire and Wind, he the Sun and Moon, he the Lord of Justice, he Kubera, he Varuna, he Great Indra. Even an infant King must not be despised that he is mortal; for he is a great deity in human form."[184]