The lines of development of the religious faiths of mankind have been aptly termed by major-general Forlong Rivers of Life. The streams of faiths are marvellously depicted by this writer in a chart which shows the rise and fall of the various religious ideas, mythologies, and rites which have at any time prevailed among nations. This chart ingeniously shows, more over, the degrees of intensity manifested at stated periods by any particular wave of doctrine or worship, and the mode in which the tributary streams of mytho logical or theological thought become in turn absorbed in the central River of Life. The views adopted by General Forlong have much in common with those embodied in the works of Godfrey Higgins and some later writers, but they have a Special value as being based on personal observation. The author of Rivers of Life had the inestimable advantage of being ad mitted to shrines and of receiving instructions in sacred mysteries which are generally closed to European inquirers, and of having made a diligent exploration Of ruined temples, pillars, and mounds, and all such traces of a primitive symbolism, which lie scattered over the East and West, as religious fossils underlying the superficial crust of theological strata.
