FIRE, in former times, fire obtained a place among the elements, and was for a long time considered to be a constituent part in the composition of all bodies, and to require only the concurrence of favor able circumstances to develop its activ ity. Its all-consuming energy, the sim ilarity of its effects to those of the sun, its istim ate connection with light, its ter rible and yet beneficent power,—easily explain how it happened that, in times when cause and eiThet, form and essence, were not yet distinctly separated, fire became an object of religions veneration, a distinguished element in mythology, an expressive symbol in poetry, and an important agent in the systems of cos mogony. When natural philosophy was treated in the schools, theories were adopted to which little attention is paid in the present age, when all science is founded on facts and observations. Ca lorie, be it a material agent or the eonse qmineo of vibratory motion, is at present considered the cause of the phenomena which were formerly ascribed to lire; and though its nature is as unknown to us as that of fire was to the ancients, the sub stitution of one or these terms for the other has introduce.] a greater precision
of language, and cause and effect are no longer confounded under the same name.—Pire,fiame, the attribute of St. Florian. the protector against conflagra tion ; of the hermit Anthony, because the tempter appeared to him from the fire; of Bishop Basil, who saved a poor boy, by burning his compact with the devils; of St. Bridget of Scotland, over whose bead a flame was seen from childhood ; of St. Columba of Cordova, who saved an angel from death by fire; of St. Patrick, before whom fire sprung out of the earth, upon his drawing a cross upon it with his staff; of the Dominican, Peter Gonzales, called St. Elmo, who enveloped in a man tle, lay upon burning coals, whence the expression S. E'lmo's fire; and of many Christian martyrs condemned to die by fire.