Dulaure and some other writers describe a variety of ceremonies which were taken part in by the women in order to procure the children who would satisfy the cravings of their husbands. It is probable that a good deal of what took place at the shrines of heathen goddesses in other lands, arose from this anxiety, and not altogether from a merely licentious habit of character and disposition. It has been said, as we may have already suggested perhaps, that the priests connected with some of the temples resorted to by childless women for the cure of their misfortune, were cunning enough to provide for what was wanted in a more practical way than by the simple performance of certain ceremonies, and that where the failure to produce children was due to some fault on the part of the husband, means were at hand by which the woman soon found herself in the desired condition. It is rather singular that something very similar was found among the Jewish women in the time of Ezekiel, as we have found in India; the Indian woman sacrificed her virginity at the shrine of the Lingam, and in the 16th chapter of the prophet's book, verse 17, we read:--"Thou didst take also thy fair jewels of my gold, and didst make to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them." The latter, however, was evidently of a very different character to the former, being nothing more or less than the impure worship of Priapus as carried on in the orgies of Osiris, Bacchus, and Adonis, the images of the Hebrew women being such as the Priapi used in those ceremonies; on no account must those foolish and filthy practices be confounded with that act of worship which men in primitively simple condition rendered to the agents employed in the act of generation, which was innocently regarded as only one of the operations of nature. The moral of this part of the subject, and with which for the present we take leave of it, is this, that the Eastern, from his views of the future life, deems it absolutely necessary that he should leave offspring, either real or adopted, behind him, to carry out the obligations imposed by his religion, and that in order to attain in the possession of what is to him such a blessing, he is called upon to propitiate in every possible manner the physical agents and powers employed in the process,--hence the rise and practice of phallic worship. THE END. FOOTNOTES: [1] See Dudley's _Naology_. [2] _Edin. Rev._, 1870, p. 239. [3] Jewitt. [4] Hawkins' _Sketch of the Creek Country_. [5] _Myths of the New World._ [6] Jewitt in _Art Journal_, 1876. [7] Quoted by Jewitt, in _Art Journal_, 1874. [8] Lysons, _Our British Ancestors_. [9] Cory, _Mytho. Inquiry_. [10] Cory, _Mytho. Inquiry_. [11] Faber, _Orig. Pag. Idol._ [12] Meyrick's _Cardigan_. [13] Inman, _Anc. Faiths_. I. [14] _Rivers of Life._ [15] Dr. Beke. [16] Dr. F. A. Cox. [17] Ewald, _Antiq. Israel_. [18] _Mems. Anthrop. Soc. 1._ [19] Lewis. _Origines Heb._