THE " NAILING" OF THE IDOL.
(TO Tel EDITOR OF TRH “EDIcOTAT011."1
SIR,—The relapse of the modern German into paganism is not the least remarkable outcome of the Treitschke philosophy of history.. The driving of nails into sacred trees was con- nected with primitive Nature-worship, and now it is revived in the case of the Hindenburg wooden statue in Berlin into -which the faithful are invited to drive nails as a "token of gratitude." Visitors to Vienna will remember the "Stock im Eisen" at the corner of the Graben, a tree-stump studded with nails, which is believed to be a relic of this superstition. Is not this the custom referred to in the tenth chapter of Jeremiah?—
"For the customs of the people are vain for one outteth a tree out of the forest, tho work of the hands of the workman, with the
axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. . . .
Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good."
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