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superseded by the divine names familiar to us, the creation, no doubt, of international astrology, which aimed at giving in each nation the nearest equivalent for the (presumably) Chaldaean originals. But Hesper-Phosphor was never superseded. Lists of the planets may be found, where, while the other divine names are given, there is no Venus, but Hesperus or Phosphorus. Now it was on the day of the Evening and Morning Star that Jesus had, as the Church believed, accomplished His redeeming sacrifice, and indeed according to the form of reckoning which began the day at sunset, it was on this day also that He had instituted the rite which Christians met weekly to celebrate. Was the Christian imagination stirred by this association of their Master with the day of the Morning and Evening Star, as it certainly was to some extent by His association with the Sun's day? Not a single line survives, so far as I know, to shew that it was so, and yet it is difficult to think that its significance was altogether missed. For we may remember that while Jesus is never called the Sun in the New Testament He is called the Morning Star. In what are almost the closing words of the Revelation comes the announcement 'I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the Morning Star.' Perhaps, too, we may couple with this the mysterious phrase in the message to the Church of Thyatira in the second chapter: 'to him that overcometh and keepeth my words
