Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/407

 so in heathen religions. The only exception, I believe, is in Mohammedanism, whose votaries save themselves any trouble about the future by their thorough fatalism. They believe so fully and vividly that everything is immovably predestinated, being at the same time perfectly sure of heaven at last, that they quietly receive everything as it comes, and don’t take the least trouble to find out how it is coming.

The Sibyls were women, supposed to be inspired by some divinity, who prophesied of the future. Some say there was but one; some two, three, four, or ten. All sorts of obscure stories are told about the time and place of their activity. There was the Persian or Chaldean, who is said to have foretold with many details the coming and career of Christ; the Lybian, the Delphic, the Cumæan, much honored by the Romans, and half a dozen more. Then there was Mantho, the daughter of Tiresias, who was sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and desperate old