savour.[1] As to incense more precisely of the sort we are familiar with, it was in daily use in the temples of Mexico, where among the commonest antiquarian relics are the earthen incense-pots in which 'copalli' (whence our word copal) and bitumen were burnt.[2] Though incense was hardly usual in the ancient religion of China, yet in modern Chinese houses and temples the 'joss-stick' and censer do honour to all divine beings, from the ancestral manes to the great gods and Heaven and Earth.[3] The history of incense in the religion of Greece and Rome points the contrast between old thrift and new extravagance, where the early fumigations with herbs and chips of fragrant wood are contrasted with the later oriental perfumes, myrrh and cassia and frankincense.[4] In the temples of ancient Egypt, numberless representations of sacrificial ceremony show the burning of the incense-pellets in censers before the images of the gods; and Plutarch speaks of the incense burnt thrice daily to the Sun, resin at his rising, myrrh at his meridian, kuphi at his setting.[5] The ordinance held as prominent a place among the Semitic nations. At the yearly festival of Bel in Babylon, the Chaldæans are declared by Herodotus to have burned a thousand talents of incense on the large altar in the temple where sat his golden image.[6] In the records of ancient Israel, there has come down to us the very recipe for compounding incense after the art of the apothecary. The priests carried every man his censer, and on the altar of incense, overlaid with gold, standing before the vail in the tabernacle, sweet spices
- ↑ Callaway, 'Religion of Amazulu,' pp. 11, 141, 177. See also Casalis, 'Basutos,' p. 258.
- ↑ Clavigero, 'Messico,' vol. ii. p. 39. See also Piedrahita, part i. lib. i. c. 3 (Muyscas).
- ↑ Plath, 'Religion der alten Chinesen,' part ii. p. 31. Doolittle, 'Chinese.'
- ↑ Porphyr. de Abstinentia, ii. 5. Arnob. contra Gentes. vii. 26. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 14.
- ↑ Wilkinson, 'Ancient Egyptians,' vol. v. pp. 315, 338. Plutarch. de Is. et Osir.
- ↑ Herodot. i. 183.
