ORION.

p. 30.

ORION.

     Orion, the splendid 3, coming as light, the most brilliant and striking constellation in the starry heaven, has been claimed by the pride of man, from Nimrod, the first of those mighty hunters whose prey was their fellow-man, to Napoleon, whose almost equally extensive empire, won by the sword, was dashed from his grasp, his empire smitten, though not unto death, by the predicted wound from the sword of late-resisting Europe 4. Where is their glory, where are they now, those kings of nations who said in their hearts, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds? 5" The awful depths of unfathomed eternity seem to re-echo, "Where?" Meanwhile the starry emblem of the Mighty One, "who was, and is to come," looks down in dazzling and undiminished lustre on their mouldering dust. Long before Nimrod had founded the first worldly monarchy of bloodshed and oppression, whose ruins now being disinterred tell of its ancient tyranny and utter destruction, this heavenly memorial of prophecy had been consecrated to the glory of a King 6 who shall rule in righteous- ...

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   3 The name is so interpreted by Prof. Lee. Hesiod speaks of the "strong" or mighty "Orion."

   4 Rev. xiii.3.

   5 Isa. xiv.13, 14.

   6 The native Irish still call this figure Caomai, the armed king.

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ness, whose kingdom shall have no end. The names annexed to the constellation, the mighty one, the prince, the ruler, no doubt suggested the original assumption of it, as imaging the first temporal monarch, and the earlier assumption suggested that of later years. But, if earlier, the claim of Nimrod is not better than that of Napoleon. The sycophants of the old Assyrian had no more power to annex a new name to the constellation than the admirers of the recent aspirant for the same honor: no ancient appellation has any more trace of Nimrod than of Napoleon. During the first French empire this starry figure was by some few in France called the constellation Napoleon. When the fallen conqueror was on his way to exile, he is said to have asked a village priest, what "those stars" were called. The priest replied, he had never studied astronomy. Such is "fame!" The flatterers of the modern Nimrod were more daring than those of the ancient, who appear to have waited till death had removed their hero from the infirmities and vicissitudes of human life. With what feelings must he have seen the stars once called after his name rise above the prison rocks of St. Helena! If the age of hero-deification was past in his day, in that of Nimrod it seems to have begun to mingle with the earlier and less ignoble worship of the host of heaven. Before Nimrod was a sovereign, "the host of heaven" had been perverted from their original destination of "declaring the glory of God," to the first deviation from the patriarchal religion, that of honouring the symbol with the honour due alone to the thing symbolized.

     In the book of Job mention is twice made of Chesil, translated and generally considered to be the constellation Orion; but as the word occurs in the plural, Chesilim, in Isa. xiii.10, and as there is but one Orion, this name must have a different intention. It always, however, is attributed to Orion, and in its radical meaning of bound together well applies to the nebulae so remarkable in this constellation, stars bound together by the all-pervading law of gravitation. From this most ancient name, and form that of Misam, assembled, applied to other nebulae, it appears that those who gave them saw what Lord Rosse's great telescope has only lately made plain to modern science. Those ancients knew that these white clouds of light in the far depths of space were assembled orbs, bound together by the universal law of the universal Lord.

     In the modern sphere, the foot of Orion is on the bare, a most unintelligible position; but originally, as may be seen in Egyptian remains 1, his foot was on the serpent. Arnebeth, the hare coming to rend, or tear, the vegetable crops, seems to have been substituted for the similar sounding "enemy of Him that cometh." A serpent was figured in this place in Oriental spheres. The foot upon the serpent's head was the distinguishing mark of the seed of the woman, whether as the lamb, the lion, the kneeling Hercules, the conflicting Ophiuchus, or Orion "coming forth as light 2." The victory over the serpent, and the wounded foot, equally indicate Him in ancient mythology. The Greeks degrading Orion into a mere hunter, yet gave him divine parentage, and preserved the tradition of the wound in the heel from a venomous creature, which aids in identifying the Mighty One here figured with the promise of the Redeemer who should come "travelling in the greatness of His strength."

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   1 As the Dendera planisphere. There is a created bird on the serpent's head in this place, said to be the hoopoe, an emblem of uncleanness among the Egyptians. From this it has been thought the figure of the hare might arise.

   2 By the Egyptians Orion was called the constellation of Orus, both names meaning who comes.