For example. That beautiful cult, or religion of old, sun-worship,--is traceable in modern institutions, and the old fire-worship, so wondrous, still lives in that word Purity (from the Greek word _pur_, fire), which is the expression of our highest or deepest sense of all that is morally perfect; and in the very steeples of our churches is the old fire-worship symbolized; for the steeple is but a representation of the old obelisks, which were themselves but symbols of the tall shafts of fire which shot up from the top of some mountain, like Sinai, when the worshippers built thereon the vast _bon_-fires,--or good, i. e., _holy_,--fires to which the vast assemblages poured forth their devotions. And in even the names of the days of the week we preserve the memories of the old superstitions, and to some extent the superstitions themselves--Sun-day, day devoted to the worship of the sun, and so on. In Thurs-day, or Thor's-day, we are kept in mind of the old Scandinavian god, as potent in the estimation of his worshippers as the Jehovah of the Hebrews was to them, though a somewhat different character. Through all grades, and shades, and degrees the superstitious element of to-day finds itself fed. The sublime and the ridiculous still exists as of old, and the advertising columns of the public journals tell but too plainly and painfully of the susceptibility of the masses to the deceits and frauds to which the superstitious element in them subjects them. The sorcerers are not yet extinct, and the prophets, as good as most of those of ancient days, and magicians as expert as those whom the greater magician, Moses, outwitted, are still to be found; and I suspect these excel those of ancient times in one important, the most important, art--that of money-getting. But they have an advantage over their prototypes in that they have the influence of the public journals of these days to widely proclaim themselves--to make their pretensions heard by a larger audience. I suspect that many a reader of this would be surprised to learn, could he be statistically informed, how vast is the number of the victims of modern sorcery. These are not confined to the lower orders, as many an intelligent and educated man, who has not made the special matter of remark here a study, might quite sensibly suspect. None of the conventional grades of society, whether the same be measured by money, by the education of books, or what is called "blood," or high hereditary social position, is lacking in them; and it is remarkable that the victims from the educated circles are as much more intense, generally, in their superstitions, as their superiority in other respects to the uneducated is marked and distinguished. I suppose this may be accounted for thus: Being once led into superstition, the man of letters resorts to his pride of intellect to sustain himself in it, and deepen his convictions; for although we cannot exactly believe whatever we please,--for the character of