influence of the number seven—"the number
of perfection," and of tracing its connection
with most of the events set forth in the
sacred books, from the mighty work of
creation recorded in Genesis, in which God
was believed to have employed seven angels,
down to the seven years' service of Jacob for
his wives. "It is that number," says Leon
Batista Alberti, "in which the Almighty
himself, the maker of all things, takes
particular delight."

But to pass from things sublime to things
sublunary. The ancient connection of the
number seven with architecture might alone
form the topic of a small essay. Solomon
writes, "Wisdom hath built her house: she
hath hewn out her seven pillars." And
Gentiles as well as Jews seem to have had
a community of ideas with respect to this
number. It is found in the two most
remarkable temples of Grecian antiquity, viz.,
the Cella of the Parthenon, which is
supported by seven pillars on either side, and
the colossal temple of Jupiter Olympius at
Agrigentum, which is adorned with seven
columns on the east and west, and fourteen
on the sides. Wykeham, in the plans of his
chapels at Winchester and Oxford, divided
them longitudinally by seven. In other
English architecture, older as well as later, the
number seven constantly recurs, for example,
in the cathedral churches of York, Durham,
Lichfield, Exeter, and Bristol, the abbey
church of Westminster, the churches of
Romsey, Waltham, Buildwas, and St. Alban's (in
the Norman part); at Castle Acre, and at
St. George's, Windsor. It prevailed
especially in France, as we may find in the cathedral
churches of Paris, Amiens, Chartres,
Evreux, &c.

Then, to turn from the substantial
monuments of mediæval time to the fabulous theories
of Asiatic speculation; we have the cycles of
seven thousand years seen by the mysterious
Persian bird, or griffin, Simurgh, who,
according to Eastern romance, had lived to see
the earth seven times filled with animated
beings, and seven times a perfect void, and
who predicted that the race of Adam would
endure for seven thousand years, and then
give place to beings of more perfect nature,
with whom the earth would end. The
Hindus reverence the mysterious names of
the seven worlds. Amongst this remarkable
people, the Creator shines with seven rays;
he is Light or the effulgent Power, who is
held to be manifest in the solar orb, and to
pervade or illumine the seven worlds or
abodes—the seven mansions of all created
beings. The earth is held, in Hindu belief,
the first or lowest of these; then, there is the
world of renewed existence, in which beings
passed from earth exist again, but without
sensation, until the end of the present order
of things; Heaven, or the upper world, the
abode of the good; the middle world—an
intermediate region; the world of birth,
where the inhabitants of the existing globe
who shall be destroyed at its conflagration
will be born again; the mansion of the
blessed; and finally, the seventh world, the
sublime abode, the residence of Brahme
himself. The number seven enters also into one
of the Hindu modes of trial by ordeal, seven
leaves of each of three kinds of herbs being
fastened on the hands of the accused with
seven threads.

The seven sacred evolutions of the Moslems
round the Black Stone of Mecca, is another
example (and the last we shall give) of the
connection of this mysterious number with
the superstitions of Asia.

Then, as affecting human life, the old
physicians and philosophers held that every
period of seven years effected an alteration
in the human system. Thus, the period of
infancy was fixed at seven years, and there
was another septennium of boyhood. The
prevailing notion of the climacteric years was
founded on the same tenet, and thence also
we derive the Seven Ages of Man. There
are the seven senses, and we have lately seen
discussed the superstition connected with a
seventh son. Among the Romans, infants
who died before attaining the seventh month
of their age had not the ordinary rites of
sepulture. So, in some parts of the East,
children who die under seven years are not
mourned by their parents.

The ancients boasted, as we all know, the
seven wonders of the world; and in modern
ages we hear of the seven wonders of
Dauphine, and the seven wonders of Wales.

In the great Isle of Arran may still be
seen the grave of the seven Romans, which
bears an inscription of remote Saxon
antiquity; and in the town of Cell Beloigh there
were the seven streets inhabited by strangers.
Another of the marvels of Ireland was the
changing of sundry Irish natives into wolves
every seven years, according to Giraldus.

In legendary lore and tales of enchantments
the number seven occurs prominently.
The realities of manhood have not obliterated
what we used to read about a service to a
giant or a fairy for seven years, and a spell
that was to endure for seven years, like the
seven years' sleep of the Beauty in the fairy
tale, and St. Patrick's memorable banishment
of the reptiles and demons for seven
years, seven months, and seven days. Both
ancient and modern fable adorned their
annals with seven sleepers, and chivalry and
romance furnished Christendom with seven
champions.

We might go on to trace the occurrence of
the number seven in classical writings and
Roman story. It has, however, come down
to modern times in many of our own usages
and familiar things, besides the nomenclature
of the seven days of the week, derived from
the seven known planets. In this country,
seven years is in many particulars a significant
period of time. We serve seven years'