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 THE LIGHT 
 
 THE SHADOWS: 
 
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 CHRISTIANITY THE lOEftL OjF OUR RACE. 
 
 A LECTURE, 
 
 DELIVBKED BEFORE THE 
 
 ON TUESDAY ETENlNa, DECEMBER 6, 1859. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM GARVIE. 
 
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 THE LIGHT AND THE SHACOWS. 
 
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 It was often said of old that the most distinctive feature 
 of humanity, in contrast with earth's other races, was — not 
 Reason, but — Religion. With some rare and unimportant 
 cases which occur exceptionally in its rigid application, there is, 
 notwithstanding; in tliis principle, a weight and a significance 
 historically manifest. The instinct of inferior life, despite its 
 narrowed and imperfect action, bears yet a faint relation to the 
 majesty of man's intelligence, much the same as the tremulous 
 grey streaks of early dawn bear to the golden flooding sun- 
 light of the day's meridian. Those exquisitely geometric 
 chambers which the wild bee frames, the marvellous structures 
 of tlic beaver by the waters of the West, evince a capacity of 
 design which almost seems an echo of reflective reason, ren- 
 dering at least less total the disparity between Intellect and 
 Instinct. But the awful grandeur of our moral nature has not 
 the faintest counterpart within the sphere of brute existence ; 
 while the tribes of earth and air, acting by an innate impulse, 
 like man may fashion dwellings, man alone uprears the altar and 
 the temple — to the human soul alone is it permitted to realize 
 in consciousness the vast idea of Divinity, the sublime necessity 
 of Worship ; while the mellow minstrelsy gushing in clear, 
 cheery chorus from the woodbirds in th* branches, all in the 
 sunnner mornings since earth's fair prime, was but the utter- 
 ance of that blind life which stirred within and overflowed in 
 
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 soTigj there was higlier aim and ineaning in tliu holcnir c-haunt 
 which roso with either twilight to tlie skies — cf^pccially in that 
 ^a]m pristine happiness, or ever the grim hleak sorrows [of 
 the Fall dispelled the glories of the Golden Age — when man^ 
 wearing the crown of stainless nature on his hrow, was the 
 primate also in its wide spontaneous worship, and uplif/ed at 
 dawn and cvenfull grand ascriptions to Creative pow er, ad- 
 hering thus to that religion of nature wdiich rounded in the 
 bliss of his immortality. For when he that was our earliest 
 ancestor walked innocent in Eden, fuliilling in his nature 
 the design of his creation, his Leing moved in one harmoni- 
 ous circle of fruition ; and, irresistibly impelled by its most 
 essential elements of action, the moral consciousness and 
 the sense of dependence on Omnipotence, his soul welled 
 daily up in blissful fulness to his Maker. The earth was 
 then a mighty temple, beautiful, pure, and holy with the 
 homage of the ci cature — from the blind material atoms that 
 obeyed the laws of the eternal source of all causation, lip lo 
 man the high priest, offering, in the shrines of Eden, for him- 
 self and the subordinate creation, the incense of their adora- 
 tion to Jehovah. 
 
 But that change we wot too well of passed with its train of 
 awful consequences upon the race : 
 
 " Eartli felt tlie woniid, and nature from lier seat 
 Sighing- through all lier works, gave signs of woe 
 Tliat all was lost." 
 
 In that disastrous hour which followed upon impious revolt, 
 the bond of beauteous innocence, tliat, like the golden chain 
 old poets dreamed of, linked earth to heaven's hai)piness, 
 gave way beneath the heavy weight of human guilt ami the 
 curse that like an avalanclie burst wrathfully on nature. The 
 rich celestial gloiy that till then illuminated Eden waned slowly 
 from the withering blossoms— leaving all things blank and 
 
 1 
 
 
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 drear with loss and anguished apprehension, for behold, on 
 its receding traces swept tl)e dread sin-shadow, darker than 
 eclipse, that overspread tlio Heavens ; and, when the pearly 
 gates above shut in the latest lingering ray, tliat crept down 
 upon the ruined world where man, the ni'ghtier ruin, wander- 
 1 horror-stricken in the darkness and the discord that broke 
 Rtorniily around him — as every raving element bewaihd the 
 misery of nature, in tluit, after countless aeons of progressive 
 stru'j;gles for deliverance from death and chanji-e — long ere 
 man arrived upon tlie scene — yet once more, shorn of beauty 
 and detiled with suffering, must her deatli-chllled bosom be a 
 prison and a sepulcln-e. Tlio chords of harmony were snap- 
 ped, and all the tones of nature sank in quivering vibrations 
 of discordant sorrow; and when the wonted liymn from all 
 tlie sounding spheres rolled grandly up in thundering diapason 
 to the throne of the Eternal, one jarring voice disturbed their 
 antliem — and yon far off* stars gazed down in wonderment 
 ujjon their younger sister at whose b.irth tliey sang as now 
 tog(Ulier, bl(Miding with the joyful sliout of seraphim that 
 thronged to lioar the Almlglity's blessing on his finislied 
 work — tlien fair, but now enshrouded in a gloomy sorrow 
 which the moon, following in her faltering path apart, grew 
 pale with witnessing. 
 
 The light of inmiortality departed with that Age of Gold; 
 and while wirliln the universe each night gave place to 
 morning, and sunlight streamed from heaven's dome as here- 
 tofore, a vast night, like t\m funeral pall of former joy, settled 
 on the moral world ; a night of blackness in the soul of fallen 
 hvnnankind, unbroken almost — broken only by the flickering 
 light of erring reason, and the solitary ray of promise which 
 gave earnest, as it gleamed across tlie wide abyss of sorrow, of 
 a days|)ring in the far off" future ; a night that deepened with 
 the flight of years, as the outcast race went wandering grave- 
 ward, marching, generation after generation, in the night, 
 
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 in the centuries on centuries of night. This ha/.o of niorul 
 gloom, and tlic swelling tide of sorrow that swept tuniiiltuously 
 throij;i:h the hearts of careworn mortals, almost wholly hlottcd 
 out the reminiscence of the happy past and the f^lory that had 
 been — obscuring the tnie aspect of their present state, just as 
 a heavy sea-mist, driving landward, veils tiic ocean and 
 enwraps the rocky shores, till every gvey eiag peers dark 
 and undefined through the shifting folds of the fug-eurtains. 
 They lost amid the darkness of such desolation the eternal 
 lustre of the Good and the True which formerly irradiated 
 the spiritual nature, making it thus a refltiction, perfe(!t in its 
 kind, of the Divine. Not that they were destitute of a 
 glimmering conception of what they had as well as what they 
 hud lost, fur though evil had defaecvl that glorious image, yet 
 was it so constituted that it could never lose its characteristic 
 features, but must constantly exist in the .-ityle of tlie original 
 design. They could not fail to discern that a glory had 
 departed from the earth, that change and imperfection spread 
 where higher things had been, and that humanity was 
 haunted by a blighting sense of happiness forfeited and guilt 
 incurred ; they heard it whispered by a boding voice within, 
 they felt it in the life-long yearnings that consumed their 
 hearts — the longings for a lost ideal, for a glance beyond 
 surrounding mysteries, beyond the shadows that separated 
 them from that pure light of immortality, and that knowledge 
 of the True, the Good, the Beautiful, which they felt to be so 
 essential to their happiness, and that to the perfection of their 
 being ; they read i' on the countenance of earth, scarred by 
 the dread malignity of evil, yet wearing traces of a ptiisive 
 beauty that the spoiler might not totally efface; in their 
 darkened souls sin-gusts stirred up passions which their evil 
 breath had first distempered, to struggle with each other 
 uncontrollably, and yet they felt that it ought not so to be— 
 for a something more than memory hinted at a perfection and 
 
 I 
 

 11 knowlctlgo iKjlonginj^-, jKnlia[>s, to some for<;otteri life, 
 anterior to tlioir present state, and bedlnmiei] liy the sorrows 
 and darknesses whieli flowed around them as tliey journeyed 
 on to the linknown. And then close (|uestioninf];s |»er[dexed 
 them respeeting tliis rnknown, this veil behind wliieh tlie 
 irreat life-current dided wave by wave. Was all beyond it 
 nothingness V Or did the streaui leap out into a world of light, 
 and mingle with great seas of rest, restored to all humanity 
 had lust and lonped for 't Like sere leaves drifted through 
 the forest paths by the north wind went the generations of 
 the sons of men ; yet yearly did the voice of south winds and 
 warm nuirmuriiig rain call up a budding life ; did any mighty 
 voice dispel the trance of death, and bid mortality welcome 
 to an innnortal home '; and if so, coidd not one voice conio 
 back through intervening shadows with tidings of that undis- 
 covered land '! Sn like the " blind bat searchiiig air for light," 
 they strove to solve the enigma of existence ; till, wearied with 
 tlieir unavailing toil, they looked out upon the universe, if 
 haply they might find among its labyrinthine mysteries a clue 
 to guide them up to Truth. And Nature met their troubled 
 gaze with an answering glance (.f sorrow and appeal ; on man, 
 wherever he might turn, she fixed an eye of suffering ; in tiio 
 wildest solitude he was confronted by " a presence that would 
 not be put by," a presence out of rock and stream that in his 
 spirit's ear muttered some secret, or perhaps besought him to 
 free creation from her bonds by some mode she strove to 
 make him understand — in vain, for all her tones were strange 
 as those of a forgotten language, and he co-..d only catch the 
 sorrow of her voice, could only feel that matter, like the 
 higher being, grieved for lost perfection, and struggled with 
 the pangs of ruin and decay. Her cry was on the shores ; 
 for there the melancholy main broke drearily — its billowy 
 swell now surging wildly up, now sweeping wasted back in 
 restless alternation, uttering to the wave-worn crags a hollow 
 
ill 
 
 voice ..f mf);ining evermore— [i sad iiionotoiious rofinin tliiit 
 nwur tbe simm upon a tlumsMnd .shores. And as he Ictoked 
 with loiiojunr eyes ju;ros,s tlic waters for tlio " liolit that never 
 was on lan.l or sea," ho heard tlu; gnsfy win(i eonie trailing; 
 tiirough the forests, waking as it went tho hoari-e grim firs, 
 nnd blending the (k>ep angry shout of (.ak and eedar witli tlie 
 fitfid wailings of tlie willow. As when tho contre-wlu'(d of 
 some huge maeliine is broken, and on the instant all the 
 
 wondrous meehanisni rushes rattling into ruinous confusion 
 
 every link, and 'holt, and wheel grates harshly on its fellow, 
 in a mutual nuitilation — lound and round the giant ir(tn arms 
 whirl madly through tho air, meeting with destructive crash 
 in each successive revolution — till the mighty framework 
 suiks, a shattered, sha])<'less mass, even so within the onco 
 liariiionious universe it was evident that the circle t>f c(des' 
 tial perfection had l)cen rudely snapped, and thus her wide 
 departments clashed discordantly. Inanimate existence was 
 shaken to the centre with clement;d war, scathed and wasted 
 by the flame, the ll<H)d, earth(|uake, siroc, and tornado : while 
 an evil more malign vexed every living form; the solitudes 
 were startled with the roar of savage conflict and the death- 
 shriek ; ravine roamed tho desert, gaunt, and grim, and 
 gory ; nor did havoc dwell among the w'lstcs alone — but men 
 met men in vengeful battle-shock, and the clash of blood- 
 stained weapons, and the war-shout, an<l the tunudt of tlie car- 
 nage, rose ever and anon amid the shadows— for the oreat 
 hiN-siiADOw and that other suadow, Dkatii, grow deeper in 
 the universe, enwrapping life and nature closer with a shroud 
 of desolation. The whole creation groaned indeed and 
 travailed mightily in pain, crying in all tones of anguish, 
 fiom the thunder burst of riven matter to the " still sad music 
 of hamanity." Yet, as it cowered in gloom so cheerless, the 
 spirit heard a secret voice far down in tho depths of its 
 benighted nature keep whispering of a great First Cause, 
 
 ] 
 

 wlioso power produced cxisfeneo r.nd wwoso vengoanco 
 wrought this woo : Honic omnipotent JJt'inj^ to be sought out 
 .ind appeased, that rest and happiness might return to the 
 race, — and, panting for full Ivnovvledgo, a cry went out from 
 every heart for light. And yet that darkness need not 
 liave been hopeless, for the light of an aneient revelation still 
 remained ; but from it they shrank with guilty trendding ; its 
 ray was far too searehing — far too distinctly it lit up tho 
 appalling aspect of their wrecking condition, bringing out 
 every mark of degradation in the ghastliest relief. And as 
 our eyesight, overpowered by the intense noon-beams is mock- 
 ed by many-colored spectra — little unreal images of the sun's 
 bright disk — so they, dazzled by the pure white light of 
 Trutl", and neith'^r able to endure its lustre nor to stay tho 
 ceaseless cravings of their nature, clamorous without it, were 
 drawn away to follow a thousand jihantoms, t^^T- '• eations of 
 distempered fancy — false illusions, whose s^-mulance to Truth 
 was all the falser from the closeness of the semblance. Like 
 " Hoosphoros," the star that rides van ward of tho dawfi, 
 that ancient revelation was the harbinger of Christianity ; and 
 those shade wy substitutes the mythic creeds, begotten of 
 "vain imaghiation," and by which the human heart was 
 "darkened." 
 
 The earliest form of heath(;ulsia seems to have been a 
 f1 ivish reverence fur the grmt material powers — especially such 
 as contributed to tho genial reproductive influence pervading 
 nature. Tlie most remai'kable of these was Fire. As inces- 
 i?ant in its action as a spirit, the ascending spire of flame 
 seemed ever to assort a heavenly origin ; like a divinity it 
 })urified and inflicted pain ; and, when its myriad burning 
 streams burst roaring from the crater or enwrapped the 
 crackling forest, earth knew no destroyer so resl.stless in its 
 fury, or more merciless, than fire. Almighty vengeance II 
 tlie ancient revelation of their Maker to the race was symbol- 
 
4 j 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 hd by - consuming fire :" reverting to the traditionary .tory 
 of tlie Fall they recalled the circumstance of that mysterious 
 «word of flame ^hich, grasped by guardian cherubim, de- 
 barred approach to Eden's portals-flashing with an an-ry 
 glare upon the tearful gaze of those homeless watchers that 
 lingered ni the wilderness beyond. Moreover, light seemed 
 interwoven with the fiery essence ; they beheld it radiant in 
 the stars, blazing in the redwinged thunderbolt, and glowinrr 
 with unmatched excess of splendour from the noonday sky ; and 
 when they saw how, day by day, the glorious sun arose, and 
 drove the night from heaven, and cheered the wan creation till 
 It smded ; how with the dappled dawn the flowers awoke in 
 beauty and the woodlands rang with melod;y ; how year hy 
 year he led the soft spring through the valleys, and with his 
 genial beams induced the earth to bless her children with 
 abundance ere grim winter should come shiverino- downward 
 from the snow-capped hills— what wonder that °they looked 
 once more upon the skies with hope, and reared in all tlie 
 «unny East the temples of the Sun-god ? By the lilied mar- 
 gin of Euphrates, among the roses in the Persian vales arose 
 the shrines of Eire; and while the hymns of Zoroaster floated 
 lip the mountain-slopes to greet the dawn that gathered orayly 
 round the peaks of Himalaya, tar off beyond the ni<rhdmiur 
 seas-where on the Egyptian sands the mighty shadow o"f 
 gigantic Memnon trailed behind the statue's base to screen its 
 dark shape from the sinking moon— knelt many a swarthy 
 worshipper within tlie hearing of the hoary Nile, that mur- 
 mured m his slumbrous flow ; while all-as silent as tlie 
 solemn sculptured face above them-gazed like it expectant 
 on the far horizon faintly streaked with growing twilight, 
 {slowly in the eastern arch of Heaven a pale light flowed in 
 upon the darkness, and a rosy flush upon the paleness ; more 
 brightly burnished grew the distant verge ; till all at once a 
 a burst of glittering radiance flashed out upon the lands, at 
 
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 once the streaming splendour poured its fullness on stupen- 
 dous IMemnon's brow ; and, in the moment, from the glory- 
 smitten lips brake mystic harmony — a full sonorous welcome to 
 the orient god, his sire Osiris : and catching up the cry, the 
 enraptured throng uttered all their heart in supplitmt shouts 
 and salutations, calling skyward to the Day-King, "Hail 
 Osiris ! Fuse Osiris ! Rise and shine, and scatter thou the 
 darkness of the night and of our sorrows ! With light and 
 beauty bless our eyes Osiris !" So cried they in tlieir joy to 
 see the sunlight fill the heavens— and all the while the orb was 
 heedless of their orisons, and the gloom of evil and of death 
 grew darker in their souls, even as the early mists crept closer 
 to the bosom of their ancient river. 
 
 On the Chaldean plains Fireworship assumed the aspect of 
 Astrology; and many a weary vigil did the hoary seeker after 
 wisdom spend gazing from the watch-towers along the walls 
 of sleeping Babylon up into the boundless empyrean thickly 
 strewn with stars. There before his eyes stretched cut the 
 midnight heaven— glittering with its clustered glories ordained 
 to show forth the Almighty's glory, and the grandeur of His 
 handiwork. Nightly for a lifetime did the seer ascend his 
 lonely post, and gaze upon that ample record in the firmament ; 
 and at dawning he went down sick at heart and groaning that 
 he could not read it. Day unto d;'y in his hearing uttered 
 speech, night unto night showed knowledge, and sent it 
 earthward like a falling star— and seeing it he knew it not. 
 Every sparkler in yon wandering train, silent though it seem- 
 ed, uttered forth a glorious voice, a voice all night as loud as 
 when it thunders, and all a choir of voices pealing in illimitable 
 (space — " there being no speech nor language where their voice 
 is not heard, their line is gone out through the earth, and 
 their words to the end of the world." Yet like those great 
 voices which, according to Mahometan fable, go bellow- 
 ing through the universe unheard by men, those starry tone:? 
 
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 12 
 
 that .sliouteJ " Behold tho Trao ! lo hero fair witness of the 
 Good, the Beautiful," failed to pierce the clouded, undiscerning 
 sense of those shepherd seers ; to tliem tho sweet influence 
 of I'leiades was inscrutable, silent to them was j\razzaroth in 
 its season, and all voiceless Arcturus and his sons ; without a 
 sound, it seemed to them, that bright celestial army marched 
 across the azure fields, looking coldly down upon the solitary 
 earth, the star of graves. For this thing had the shadows done 
 —the great Sin-shadow and that Other— they had chilled and 
 weakened reason and obscured the spirit's vision, so that eter- 
 nal truth was something incomprehensible to men— neither to 
 be known or acknowledged by their blinded eyes. Thus these 
 ancient sages, hungering in tlieir hearts for higher knowledge, 
 turned, through time, their eyes away from that eternal ocean 
 sown with shining worlds; and, fixing them on cabalistic 
 parchment, " changed the truth of God into a lie ;" toiling 
 all their evil span of years in vain, and going down into the 
 vast Unknown, with not a star of hope to guide them in the 
 gloom. 
 
 The most ancient of the superstitions, Fireworship was 
 purer awhile in its details than many of the systems into which 
 it eventually branclied. At first it was simply symbolical, 
 and preserved cori-eetly in its allegories many features of 
 primeval llevelation. The eternal infinity and omnipresence 
 of a Divine nature was represented by the endless, boundless 
 light ; night, and storm, and winter— in contrast with light 
 and heat— gave vivid illustration of the intervention of "^an 
 evil principle whose dark malignity found a theatre for its 
 opposition to the Eternal in this our portion of Creation— 
 which, as was also taught, should be the scene of the last 
 great struggle when a Deliverer, an incarnation of the Divine, 
 should appear and overwhelm forever the dark troubler of 
 the universe. But even truths like these, as we have seen, 
 wore overlaid by error and unholiness : and in the growing 
 
18 
 
 degeneracy of the race were wholly misconceived. Tho 
 struggle between light and darkness, between good and evil, 
 afforded grounds in Persian mythology for Dualism — a be- 
 lief in the eternally independent and antagonistic existence of 
 two rival powers, Ormuzt, the source of light and joy, and 
 Ahriman, the evil soul of darkness ; to both of which, accord- 
 ingly, homage and propitiation were enjoined by the sacred 
 writings of the Magi. The doctrine of human accountability 
 became the pretext for yet darker rites ; and the votaries 
 who reared high places: on the sandy flats of Shinar, or 
 erected altars on the Syrian hills — that from such eminence 
 they might the sooner greet the rising beams of Baal, the 
 lord of light — frequented lonely valleys and dark groves of 
 horror, where the voice of human victims went forth in 
 shrieking, and their blood gushed hissing on the altar-fires of 
 Moloch. The tribes that wandered, time after time, north and 
 west from the shores of the Levant, bore with them the fearful 
 fiery ritual of their fathers' creed, by which their natural de- 
 pravity was developed more and more. Bel's mystic fire, that 
 burned for ages in the palace-fanes of Babylon and Nineveh, 
 was kindled in his name b(^ide the Northern Sea. The ven- 
 turous Phoenician mariners that moored their tempest-beaten 
 barks beside the misty crags of Cornwall or the thickly-wooded 
 shores of Wales, found in Britain of the Druids shrines and 
 rites akin to those they left behind them in their distant 
 homes : echo'3S of their orient hymns stirred the dark oak 
 branches, and went far resounding through the forest aisles ; 
 grove and heath were grim with holocausts, and a foul fierce 
 mystery, eminently Asiatic in its aspect, brooded like a 
 shadow on the cromlechs of Stonehenge. The heights of our 
 Fatherland, where the genius of Liberty now sits enthroned, 
 glowed with Bcal-fires in those dim soul-fettering days ; and 
 the merry makaigs which still linger in the land — those rustic 
 
 greetings whicli the May receives— owe, most of them, their 
 2 
 
14 
 
 origin to heathen ceremonial, when praise was wont to bo 
 n>ade for gladness that the spring was eon,e; when t el„ 
 god's retmn froo, out the South was eelebr ted wUh en L- 
 «asm from the daisj-sprinkled slopes of Kent and De nto 
 
 swollen w.th the thaws of Spring, and eatehing glimpL of the 
 
 Zn r ^7'\ '"' "T'^ »' '"« •-«'-. "hunde'Td u „ 
 pean for ite freedom and for the birth of balmy summer days 
 
 known Druidism ; but the Chaldee lore was rehearsed benelth 
 he misletoe and the bards recited, in darksome penetrar ,t 
 doctrmes of the soul's immortality and transmigrations as 
 al^ the agency of an Ahnighty essence, which, disused 
 mamtely through nature, was the centre and the sum of ali 
 e..stenee. ThU affectation of myste^ i„ the higher lints of 
 worsh,p was un.versal, and arose fh>m the neelsity fdt by 
 he pnesthoods, and the more powerful classes-with whirt 
 these were dmost invariably identified-of holding '« 
 masses m check by such appeals to their s«perstitious°awe 
 And further, humanity was surrounded by so Lany mysteries 
 that a D.vme mterposition was acknowledged to be necZ 
 s^rj m solvmg the vast problem : to avow, alrdingly otZ 
 system that m it, no such provision had been madelr'th en' 
 largement o human knowledge would, its wily teachers knew 
 bo fatal to xte progress; to offer any satisfactory solution from 
 the.r own ignorance was on the other hand impossible soS 
 their sole resource lay in concealing their moral and inTplI 
 utal destitution behind the veil ol solS^Zy-lZ 
 which few might pass, and those chiefly of tl/highi orde J 
 whose interest ,t was to keep tight the trammels on the pub e 
 mmd, which was directed to content itself with the outwa d 
 observances of idolatry and the secondary manifestat on fo' 
 vinity m aU natural phenomena. In that materialistic spiri 
 arising f>.m this selfish tendency to stop short at sccoXy 
 
TOnt to bo 
 n the sun- 
 ith enthu- 
 Devon to 
 g torrent, 
 SOS of the 
 •ed out a 
 MOr days, 
 creed un- 
 1 beneath 
 ralia, tho 
 tions, as 
 diffused 
 Q of all 
 points of 
 \ felt by 
 b which 
 ing ^^e 
 us awe. 
 ysteries 
 neces- 
 , of any 
 the en- 
 I knew, 
 n from 
 so that 
 itellec- 
 a veil 
 orders 
 pubiio 
 tward 
 of Di- 
 spirit, 
 ndary 
 
 i 
 
 15 
 
 causes, the Pagan world drifted into Pantheism — a system 
 which in every ago has formed a common standing ground for 
 various opinions, even for such so apparently opposed as 
 those of the Atheist and Polytheist. It was fascinating to tho 
 first from the facility it afforded in evading the insoluble pro- 
 blems which hemmed in the reason ; while the latter found in 
 it full scope for the morbid propensity of his terror-goaded 
 mind, which led him to pay an abject and indiscriminate 
 deference to all forms and powers of nature, if haply he might 
 stumble, as it were, upon their hidden source. Materialistic 
 Pantheism most affected Egypt, where the sublime ideas of life 
 immortal and incarnate deity gradually lost their high signifi- 
 cance in a grossly servile adoration of all the phenomena of 
 Being, even to the meanest. Acting in its idealistic phase, 
 i. sapped the early lofty spiritualism of India : a grand 
 religious structure which, rising on the truths revived from 
 the pristine revelation in the venerable pages of the Shasters 
 and the Vedas, was magnificent with the spoils of ancient 
 science, and enriched by the abstract speculations of the 
 remarkable Hindoo mind. Infected by the subtle poison of a 
 misapplied philosophy, and influenced by the sensuous spirit 
 of the times, Hindoo Theology became encumbered early with 
 Mythology. They had at first the grand conception of a 
 Divine Triad proceeding from a self-exiotent Unity. Brahm, 
 they taught, was the eternal One — existing without power, 
 intellection, or moral attributes; and since no direct act 
 could be performed by a being so devoid of all eflficiency, 
 three divine emanations from his essence respectively contrived 
 and ruled the universe : Brahma, the Creator, Seeva, the 
 Destroyer, Vishnu or, perhaps more strictly, Ishnu, (the man 
 with us,) the Deliverer whose successive incarnations were for 
 the restraint of overflooding evil, and the ushering in of more 
 regenerated epochs. The attributes and actions of these 
 thi'ec were in tho pantheistic spirit personified as then" de- 
 
 % 
 
I 
 
 
 16 
 
 »eo„dante until Gods wore numbered by uullions, or rather 
 
 waT tin T'^'r ^■"' " ""«='=-'■>' ^''-g ' V 
 
 iT!;.fl Tm T "^ "" ""'•^^tramed in,agi„ation, so did 
 
 efleet the weakness and eorruption of tto and all to 
 
 Inteltt '. T! '° "" ''•°''"' -^"S'- -^-tradlctory 
 to Intellect, and loathsome to Morality 
 
 Thus throughout the world the murky pestilenee of super- 
 st..on was more and more diffused; and though in every 
 
 be „t- f. v'™ t "^ "'""™' ""'' S-» the presonee eham- 
 bor ot the Eternal, ever baser and more sottish grew thl 
 
 ™-deeper deeper, deeper, did they sink into lo!limo 
 
 of their depravity. The creeds and systems that arose "n 
 
 Shinar and Ormu.. and Memphis, spreading, wiA varied 
 
 alteration, eastward to the haleyon waters o the Ind an 
 
 Arehii^lago and westward to the seas that boom amon" t " 
 
 eefloes on the rugged shores of Thule-or even further tm 
 
 the Sun standing by their euriously earven altars, whereon 
 
 shot from Zendayistic fanes within the shadow of the Himalaya 
 -all the Idolatries, m short, of all the nations, had but L 
 vo ved them more fatally in the darkness of the Siunow , in 
 
 OTi E«. In the moral world, as in aneient Egypt, there was 
 darkness that might be felt; and yet as in thel rL Xtln 
 and there was a heaven-born light, so was there a gre°af et" 
 tral ight amid the moral darkness, and that, as then n the 
 dwelbngs of the Israelites. This light, in early days' £ 
 d ed at the souree of truth, and kept alive in aline of Patri- 
 arehs had been brought within the reaeh of those mighty c" 
 naanitish races who sat within the shadows; and bein; tlienee 
 witMrawn th.t these, departing from its remembrane:, IT.Z 
 multiply iniquities until their eup was full, it shed it lustre 
 
 i 
 
 iBV 
 
so (lid 
 
 17 
 
 from the tents of Ja.^,oh upon the hosotted Paganif?m that 
 reiojned around the Pyramids, till its mission of warning there 
 had been accomplished, when it was recalled ; and shining in 
 the centre of the chosen people, was renewed at Sinai, and 
 finally established in the land of promise — there to beam a 
 star of hope unto the nations "until Shiloh come." Sepa- 
 rated from all the other races, the Jewish nation basked in 
 tlie clear calm light of a Theocracy which secured to them 
 that lofty spiritual appreciation of the Divine, and that specia- 
 lity of Providence so fully evidenced in their character and 
 history. The humblest Hebrew lad that tended the bleating 
 flocks on the breezy slopes of Hermon — the simple maiden 
 gleaning in the harvest fields of Bethlehem — had a pure con- 
 ception of the Good and Truejso elevated that the colossal 
 intellect of Plato has achieved immortality in soaring to 
 such level ; but which a Tacitus, with all his intellectual 
 pride, could never comprehend. 
 
 The Hebrew records are emblazoned with many a story of 
 deliverance and triumph, accomplished for his chosen people 
 by Jehovah ; and while they abode by their allegiance to their 
 heavenly king the nation's growth and progress were rapid 
 and remarkable. Then Judah's bowmen braved the onset 
 of Philistia's spears, and rolled the battle backward to the 
 gates of Gath ; they held the robber Edomite at bay among 
 his rocky mountain passes; and when the mailed invader 
 dared dispute the sacred soil, many a wounded fugitive plash- 
 ed across the fords of Jordan with tidings of disaster, to 
 awake the voice of lamentation in the homes beyond the hills 
 of Moab. Neither conquerors nor merchants in the full 
 sense of such terms, and wanting much that seems essential 
 to a nation's greatness, their monarchy reached the zenith of 
 a splendour under Solomon that no time has seen surpassed. 
 The wealth and luxuries of distant countries flowed imo the 
 land ; the voice of gladness and festival was yearlong in her 
 
If 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 J 
 
 'f 
 
 18 
 
 borders ; the gorgeous ritual of their worship was worthy of 
 .to sacred grandeur. Their majestie tomplo, rearing up i,« 
 pillared beauty and its fretted pinnaeles, massive with the 
 strength of eedars, riehly decorated with the highest reach of 
 lynan art, sumptuous with the gold of Ophir, the treasure 
 and the fragrant products of Araby the Ulest, had a refulgence 
 yet more dazzling in the awful Shekinah-the burning sL of 
 the presence of the Holiest for the reeeiAn of His people's 
 adoration. The Levite laid the saerifieo upon the altar when 
 the rising day began to brighten towards Hebron, while his 
 brethren raised the ohaunt of praise; wreaths of incense 
 met the falling dews, and the quiet grovo-lmng terraces of 
 Olivet gave echo to the evening psalm ; while ever at appoint- 
 cd seasons the multitudes of Israel hasted in glorious proccs- 
 sion-with the grave, sweet melody of voioeful anthems, of 
 tmibrels, harps, and viols, and at intervals the loud, long 
 flounsh of the trumpct,_to the Queea-likc Jerusalem where 
 With resplendent ceremonial, they paid their vows, and mak^ 
 ing, through the high priest, atonement for iniquity, renewed 
 their remembrance of that mighty promise which pointed to a 
 commg renovation of the race, and a complete deliverance 
 from the dommation of evU. 
 
 Yet they wandered again and again from that pure 
 ight mto the daikness of the evil shadow: preferring as 
 tune sped on, the polluting rites of Baalim, and the revels 
 of Astarte, to the noble majesty of Eternal Truth, Beauty 
 and Goodness. Judgment followed judgment, yet they clung 
 with perverse mfatuation to the Syrian idols, seeking guilty 
 groves, to listen to the tale of wounded Tammuz, and do 
 homage to the queen of heaven. Dark, fierce clouds of woe 
 swept trailmg through the land, and the oracles of Heaven 
 uttered m their ear denunciations of their impious outbreaks! 
 and threatcnings of imminent, terrific ruin. The voices of 
 the seers-animated by prophetic fire-poured forth, in .awful 
 
 » 
 
 ifc 
 
 
worthy of 
 ig lip ita 
 with the 
 reach of 
 treasure 
 ifulgcnco 
 ig sign of 
 people's 
 tar when 
 vhile his 
 incense 
 •races oi^ 
 appoint- 
 procos- 
 leras, of 
 iJ, long 
 I where, 
 id mak- 
 'enewed 
 ted to a 
 veranco 
 
 it pure 
 ring as 
 
 revels 
 Jeauty, 
 7 clung 
 
 guilty 
 nd (Jo 
 )f woe 
 feaven 
 Teaks, 
 ees of 
 awful 
 
 19 
 
 and impassioned imagery, warnings of the coming crash 
 of tempestuous cal^tniity ; from one came, in inspired 
 strains of epic, unapproachable sublimity, the burden of 
 the Valley of Vision ; from another burst the eloquent 
 appeal to the wanderers, and the heathen whom they joined 
 in worship of the host of heaven, to '' seek after him that 
 maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of 
 death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night, 
 and calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out 
 upon the face of the earth ;" and from all wild lamentation 
 for the waning of the Light, and the ruin that should burst 
 on Judah's cities, and sweep joy and gl /"-oss from the vales 
 of Palestine. The people, notwithstanding, held their down- 
 ward way — until the ruthless oppressor came up against the 
 land, trampling down their power, and bearing off the miser- 
 able population that survived the fury of the sword into 
 mournful exile, to toil for strangers, or to wander by the 
 alien's river and weep for far off Jordan, and Zion's vanished 
 glories, till their hearts were breaking. 
 
 During the years of his captivity, the prophecy of the 
 Messiah lost its primal meaning in the mind of tine vindictive 
 Jew : his nationality, at all times narrow, was now fiercely 
 exclusive ; and instead of looking for that Light which should 
 overpower the Shadow, and unveil the True, the Good, the 
 Beautiful to redeemed humanity, he madly pined for a war- 
 rior prince wlio should break the Gentile yoke, and, with gar- 
 ments rolled in blood, take fearful vengeance on the oppressor 
 — unfurling the triumphant banner of the House of David 
 by the glare in Edom of flame-ravaged cities ; and, amid the 
 wailing of the stricken nations, leading up the victor hosts of 
 Israel to Zion's gates, with harp and trumpet all, and shout- 
 ing like the sea — till the tumultuous swell of exultation should 
 go onward in the land, and rouse in Lebanon a responsive 
 crash of echoes, rolling like the sullen summer thunder 
 through his craggy precipices. 
 

 #i 
 
 ■ 
 
 20 
 
 It was when tl,o Rplrltunlistie I.lcf,! of humanity wis 
 
 !<%. 1- \ "^ Academic groves of Greece 
 
 creel from tho venerable gloom of the LVyntian and Pho,.n; 
 
 - superstitions, yet di,. hi. sunny, o.,ufJte im Lli n " 
 
 Mly shape them f^m thoir native rudeness, and so shed fuU 
 
 plondour round the whole, that his mythoK^y seenlr the 
 
 new creafon than what in fact it was. a g.her e^ ft 
 
 «^dea made upon the topmost reach of thtse elder st^ul 
 
 hu, nt the r "T "r "' '""* ''''''"^ '""'«<' down 
 than 1 1 . u'V^' '""''" ^"''^ '» '"'hoover more surely 
 than tho rest had done the precise nuture of tho soul'f 
 
 t 7' f I" "!'"" ""' """'"y- 0"' "f 'he old, old time 
 the pl„mt,ve burden of a mournful song comes down to us a 
 
 2 t:l7r ''" : ^""'"^ -^ -- "-- despair " rose'in 
 
 AuLn . "^''•'"'"'"g ■" "'« gW Plonteousness of 
 
 m,l „T :i 7,f '"'''*'' ""^•''"S ™ "'« Larvest-yellowed 
 uph^^ds they followed on the fa-ling corn, turned waywar^ 
 
 t nem m bimd melancholy to renew among the vine's rino 
 
 tlSret;:^:^"--^ Cecro,s who wandered to 
 
 " Commodious place for every God • 
 Promptly received as prodigally brought* 
 i^rom the surrourding countries, at the choice 
 t'l all adventurers." 
 
 h 
 
n^wmm 
 
 21 
 
 So that a llttlo further on, lut yot within tho twilight of tho 
 legondary past, wo find tho " licroic song of anciont days " 
 celebrating the deeds and glory of tho immortals who in well- 
 ordered concert ruled tho universe, and, circling round ma- 
 jestic Zeus, held high state upon Olympus. These divinities 
 were known through nature. Zeus, tho cloud-compeller, 
 rode rumbling on tho thunder-glooms; Apollo was the 
 sun-god, with his shafts of light ; while Vulcan glowed among 
 tho nether fires; Ocean even, the earth-shaker, was tho 
 homo of !i billowy deity, from whoso deep-sea halls went 
 many a wierd immortal to danco among the shore-fretted 
 foam, or wind the sounding blast from wreathed shells 
 away upon the rolling blue. Tho hills too had their hab- 
 itants, the woodlands, and the streams; every sunny slope 
 of olden Greece was crowned with marble fanes, with sacred 
 shades of olive and of myrtle ; altars to the water-nymphs — 
 the Naiads — stood among the lilies at the placid fount of 
 every river ; and when straying in the forest glades where 
 the light came quivering through in checkered glef.ms, the 
 wanderer trod with holy awe such spots where mighty Pan — 
 the spirit of the wilds — might but a little space before have 
 lain and charmed the listening fauns and dryads with his 
 melodious reed, till interrupted by tho coming tread of mor- 
 tiil feet among the rustling leaves. Not a green leaf stirred, 
 not a foam-bubble danced, that did not suggest to the charm- 
 ed Greek that in each and all 
 
 *' Some shape of beauty moved away the pall 
 From his dark Bphit." 
 
 This imag'iiative religion — luxurious in its sensuous though 
 subtle perception of the Beautiful — pervaded all tho life of 
 the Greek people. It was the motive in their games, their 
 arts, their literature — in all of which they sought to look on 
 their Ideal face to face. And in tho development of the 
 
 I 
 
f b 
 
 If w 
 
 
 i 
 
 ■ 
 
 33 
 
 other dopartmont of our mtcllcct, the reasoning power .1,. 
 
 ino iruo, tho Good, as inherent in the j^.tomal " Toll.'n 
 w.. p^„„e «tep«of thou«„C' .ho .igU, Ju^l who i: f 
 for a l„ft,cr range of purer knowledge than the realms of sen o 
 
 solution of hfe's twofold problem-what wa^ contidl.orv 
 in ho human, and unexplained in the Divine Tt! 
 
 ancient pantheism rangin./ from F^n. »„ T j- , 
 
 out from the doetrinfrf r^Zn J ,'"' ''°''- """"S 
 cause of all oxistenee^aLila lit 1 ! •", """^-"'^ 
 the form of water. ^ "^'""'^ '^^'""'° i° 
 
 -ari"fdeSe'''" r"'^ ''"''"'' ^^'"'■"' "■« ^^'K-- 
 
1 
 
 23 
 
 sivo, and have followed Rpcll-bound in his awful path acres 
 tlio vast immonsity of thought, t'l!! tilled with solemn awo, 
 and woaried with dtjlight. It rouses up tho life about ono'a 
 huurt to think of this 
 
 " Gray flpirit yearning in tlesiro 
 To follow knowlcdjjo like a sinking star, 
 Beyond tlio utmost bounds of human thought" 
 
 — to watch him wandering apart upon untrodden heights of 
 speculation under tho darK shadows ; climbing higher, and still 
 higher ; moving on and onward through the profound Un- 
 known that stretched endlessly around ; till he reached the last 
 attainable limit of hid consciousness, and standing, as it were 
 upon that verge, descried afar the Light and Darkness 
 bordering each otiier with a roseate ^'rii'^e of dawn. Forced 
 to pause upon the threshold of this higher knowledge ho 
 dwelt bes'.Jo it, eagerly wishing for power to cross the 
 intervening chasm and journey to tho halls of light : and 
 seeking to dispel tho night-cloud overhanging human know- 
 ledge by tho lamp of his philosophy, through which the 
 finer instincts of his spirit beamed in clear reasonings and 
 wondrous allegories, enkindled by the glimpses ho had caught 
 of Tnith and Goodaess immutable and Divine. Yet his 
 solitary ray could not overcome the Shadows, but was over- 
 come of them ; and after his era — despite the bright influence 
 of the Stagyrite — philosophy burned dimmer gradually ; 
 flickering feebly in the Schools of Scepticism, in the chilling 
 porticoes of Stoicism, and in the corrupt haunts of wallowing 
 Epicureanism. 
 
 Such were the chief stinggles of tho ancient race to pierce 
 beyond the darkness into the light of Heaven ; and such, after 
 centuries of agonizing effort, was their melancholy issue. 
 The night is at its darkest when tae day is born ; and the 
 darkness of the moral and intellectual world was deepening 
 
m 
 
 il 
 
 1 -m 
 
 24 
 
 thicker as tho coming hour of light drew nearer hand De- 
 generation was plainly written on the features of the systems 
 of antiquity whose aim at first had been elevation of humanity 
 to perfection-to a glad and glorious communion with the 
 i)ivme. Every portion of man's nature had vented itself for 
 this end-m vain. The energies of sense-the simply animal 
 principle-had sought development in the stupendous schemes 
 of earlier days, when "there were giants on the earth • " 
 when they reared with unremitting toil the towers of Belus 
 and the Pyramids, and wrought misshapen sculptures in the 
 caves of Elephanta; when the swords of Nimrod, Sesostris 
 and a kindred host of conquerors flashed victoriously throurrh' 
 out great empires which it was their pride to sway as force- 
 fully as they had won them. Yet their ancient civilizations 
 were disappearing. Egypt had been early smitten, never 
 agam to recover her national independence, or to stand 
 straight in the fierce presence of the foreign spoilers. The 
 royal magnificence of Babylon and Nineveh was wholly 
 blotted out; and, in their stead, huge grass-grown mouldering 
 mounds were cumbering the marshes nenr the rivers The 
 splendid Macedonian empire, measured by the bannered 
 march of royal Alexander, crumbled with the crumbling of 
 he hero s dust ; the free swords of Greece were broken fon. 
 before ; and Rome alone of all the nations sat at this time in 
 the splendor of unrivalled power, crushing with colossal 
 strength the native liberties of all who fell ivithin her reach 
 Her veteran cohorts stirred with songs of victcry the moss- 
 hung branches m the far Sarmatian forests ; beoeath her ban- 
 ner on the British heights, the sentinel paced, hearkening to the 
 t Imnder of indignant seas ; the haughty eagles of her legions 
 
 Ins^^^e of Augustus' sway, the queenly city dreamed only of 
 endless prosperity and donunion. This calm look of strength 
 however, was more seeming than substantial. Rome in 
 
25 
 
 fact, despite her wide-spread territorial sway and lavish 
 opulence, had outlived her grandest days. From her prim- 
 itive republican simplicity the change was for the worse to 
 the luxurious glitter and the trailing purples of the empire. 
 The lusty hardy summer of her growth was past ; and the 
 borrowed Asiatic splendour which she wore was but the hec- 
 tic flush which hints too surely at decline ; or as the variegat- 
 ed richness of our forests when the Indian summer dyes the 
 maple leaves with gorgeous hues — so mournfully beautiful 
 because they bode decay. In the listless enervation of the 
 imperial days were sown the fatal seeds of dissolution ; and it 
 was early felt that the later Roman, more refined than his 
 stern ancestors, the Bruti and the Scipios, had lost the noble 
 spirit of the " brave days of old ;" so that while the courtly 
 bard could attune his lyre to strains of flattery, and sing in 
 Caesar's hearing 
 
 " Custocle rerum Caesare non furor 
 Civilis aut vis exigit otiuin 
 Non ira quje procudit enses 
 Et miseros inimicut urbes " 
 
 — he was yet compelled, in graver moments, to give wild 
 expression to his sorrow for the doom so plainly heralded 
 by angry thunderspots rising in the political horizon — 
 
 " Altera jam teritur bellis civilibus ajtas 
 Suis et ipsa viribus Roma ruit," &c. — 
 
 and to utter the hope that yearned within him for the reno- 
 vation of the earth in that golden age expected now so 
 eagerly in every land — for the night was darkest now. The 
 mythic fancies of the Heathen had deceived them. They 
 had callf^d upon the Gods to give them light, repining in the 
 chilling darkness, and dying with the cry " No light !" The 
 fabled davs of the intercourse on earth between Gods and men 
 they never realized ; and while clinging to the promise, liow- 
 3 
 
 
^mm^w^W^fWm 
 
 (ii 
 
 26 
 
 Hi, 
 
 h 11 » 
 
 ever obscured, of an incarnate Deliverer, they sought further 
 to raise the human to the Divine. They deified the mighty 
 and the wise of earth in hopes that thus they should succeed 
 in supplying the lost link between themselves and the Divine. 
 From Western Asia they sent Zoroaster to represent the race 
 in *^he " land of the hereafter," and from the East Confucius. 
 From Egypt went Thoth, Menu, and Osiris ; Perseus, The- 
 c eus, Cadmus, and Alcides, from the hills of Greece ; and 
 Odin from the Northland. These and a host of others 
 departed with Divine honors ; but never more did they re- 
 turn — Prometheus like — with heavenly fire and light to bless 
 the race. A Phidias might carve the marble till he shrank 
 with awe to see the Thunderer's frowning brows beneath 
 his chisel ; and an Apelles bring out upon his canvas the 
 foam-born goddess in such beauty that his spirit thrilled and 
 he stayed hi:s brush for fear of sacrilege ; and yet the human 
 heart, out-poured in moaning at the statue's base, met no re- 
 sponsive sympathy in the cold, stony eyes of the idol. The 
 Delphian and Memphian oracles, ambiguous from the first, 
 were now faltering into silence ; and such higher mysteries as 
 those of Eleusis were fallen into disrepute — having, from their 
 jealous exclusiveness, no hold upon the heart of humanity. 
 " It was easier," we are told, " to find a god than a man in 
 Athens ; " but men's hearts mistrusted that the Eternal One 
 was not yet found ; and often did the votary turn dispirited 
 from the soulless Pantheon — whose beauty mortal hands had 
 given — and lay his offering by the altar dedicated to the " Un- 
 known God." Then amid the heartless, sullen apathy that fol- 
 lowed on the failure of systems, men heard more distinctly the 
 great undercurrent of the promise of incarnation and deliver- 
 ance which was hidden amid the moral gloom and the massive 
 lumber of mythology — even as I have heard, in the solemn 
 stillness of the forest, a stream go gurgling underground — 
 dashing blindly, with many a trip and tumble, over sunless 
 
 1^ 
 
f I ,,LisilsA^£<3; A) 
 
 ■^fiiMmmm^^mwm^ 
 
 jilt further 
 he mighty 
 Id succeed 
 le Divine. 
 t the race 
 Jonfucius. 
 seus, The- 
 sece ; and 
 
 of others 
 I they re- 
 lit to bless 
 he shrank 
 s beneath 
 anvas the 
 irilled and 
 )e human 
 met no re- 
 ilol. The 
 L the first, 
 ysteries as 
 from their 
 humanity. 
 L a man in 
 ernal One 
 
 dispirited 
 hands had 
 the " Un- 
 jj that fol- 
 tinctly the 
 id deliver- 
 le massive 
 be solemn 
 rground — 
 er sunless 
 
 27 
 
 stones, to leap out into the light. Inspired, therefore, with 
 new hope, a murmur of expectation ran throughout the lands 
 that an era of renovation was about to dawn upon t*^e world. 
 The Hebrew, as the glitter of the "Roman spears upon Moriah 
 dazzled his weeping eyes, muttered, amid suppressed maledic- 
 tions, a prayer for him whose chariot seemed to linger, to 
 arise speedily and scatter yon accursed cohorts who de- 
 filed, with overweening pomp and bloodstained steel, the 
 beautiful courts of the temple : the Heathen, on the other 
 hand, more vague in their ideas, looked chiefly for some Divi- 
 nity who, like ancient Saturn, should descend to earth and 
 lead back the peaceful innocence and tranquil glory of the 
 Golden Age — when the gods would come shining again in the 
 likeness of man, and love and justice with white hands should 
 sway from sea to sea. It was dark, the night was wearing 
 late. " What of the night " — men cried, *' Watchmen, what 
 of the night V" — and after a space a voice came out of 
 Shinar, from the venerable sages who pored upon the heavens, 
 saying, '^Arouse, oh earth, tliy light is come, thy King is 
 born — we have seen His star in the East ! " — and afterwards 
 the doors of heaven opened, and a glittering throng swept 
 grandly down so near to ear^-h that the groves of Bethlehem, 
 steeped in quiet moonlight, echoed to that glorious anthem — 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good 
 will to men !" 
 
 Yes, THE LIGHT was risen I there was morning in the world I 
 Over the hills of Palestine Christianity poured its conquering 
 rays into the evil shadow, uttering the Glory of God and 
 Love to human-kind — those golden keys which unlocked the 
 doors of darkness and let in the new, clear light : higher did 
 it climb in the world's horizon ; and behold, the shadows fled 
 before it, and many an evil phantom, many a brooding terror, 
 begotten in those centuries of night, and oppressing poor, 
 forlorn humanity like a night-mare, spread their foul goblin 
 
\'r' 
 
 M 
 
 m^: 
 
 28 
 
 wines and disappeared before the widening day. The mar- 
 vellous changes which followed the inauguration of the new- 
 born faith are pourtrayed with marked distinctness on the pages 
 of history ; and wondrous tales of portents attending the advent 
 of Emmanuel teem in the traditions of the early Church and 
 the contemporaneous writings of the Heathen. One of the 
 most remarkable of these may be cited here from Plutarch a 
 Paean writer, rather to shew the striking coincidence m the 
 tendency of Heathen and Christian thought at such a time, 
 than to place muoh stress upon the intrinsic merits of the 
 legend itself, which relates to an event occurring about the time 
 of°the Redeemer's resurrection, and, as some suppose, connect- 
 ed with it. lu the hazy twilight-according to the legend— 
 when the glowing flush of sunset had etupurpled all the waters 
 interlaced among the Ionian isles, a solitary bark ky with 
 laechig sails and idle prow, becalmed upon the deep Her 
 n^in °rs-all weary of the oar-were gazing at the shadow 
 of the shores besid. which their vessel lingered as if spell- 
 bound, and wondering what kept the loitering wind so long 
 fro i following them upon the seas, when, suddenly, rustling 
 wings were heard aloft; a voice among the shrouds thenhailc.l 
 the steersman who, like the rest, stood awestruck, listening 
 with dumb, white lips, as thrice in tones of terrible commaiid 
 he was enjoined, when sailing past a certain spot, to slack his 
 vessel's course, and call over to the shores, "Great 1 an is 
 dead ' " The speaking ceased, the wind came up and failed 
 the sorely sighing sails ; and pressing forward-heavily at first, 
 then faster with the rising gale-the vessel held right on her 
 way With beating heart the pilot saw the spot the unearthly 
 voice had mentioned looming gradually up athwart the dis- 
 tant boundary of sky and sea : and many an anxious look 
 the seamen cast to windward-for they had resolved, if the 
 breeze held fresh, to sail past unheeding, nor perform the 
 wierd commanl unless bccal.ied. But. as they drifted nearer 
 
2» 
 
 tliithcr, tho SiiUs flapped backward, and drooped motionle>^s,-- 
 the prow paused dripping in subsiding foam-tl.o sol 
 wind left the seas-and, hushed in tran<iuil calm, the great 
 deep slumbeted-widely placid-saye where here and there 
 a .entle ripple bent in wavering lines the shadows of t.ie 
 .nars, or brightened as it glanced upon the rising moon, it 
 was then that, stepping to the bulwarks and looking out upon 
 the hushed expanse, the pilot called aloud "•-;»» P"""^ 
 dead " Iramediatelj, as the words rang through the still- 
 ness, a sigh-from out the very heart of horror as .t were- 
 surged upward from the deptlis, the air was stirred wifli 
 rushin-r wings, and the tumult of innumerable voices tha 
 "iupthecry, "Great Pun is dead r '-that repeated it 
 with shriek, and roar, and shout,-that bellowed it on every 
 side m aether was rent with mad reiteration. High above 
 the wind that eame up wailing, and the hoarse resoundmgsj 
 the affrighted surges, swept that tempestuous burs of soriow 
 to the meaning shores-when cry on cry awoke the s araed 
 hills to multitudinous reverberations ; till all voices of blast 
 and wave and precipice swelled tho deep dire crash o lamcn. 
 "tion. " Great Pai is dead :" Ever and anon brake for h 
 the ellmonr-waxing fainter as it wen. tow.rd the ..ars o 
 died away among the far off mountain lakes, whose guh.ng 
 ; veletslere sobbing in low syllables of --'« '"ya- 
 wing reeds, "is dead-is dead-is dead!" Yes-D...D 
 r eft Pan the mythic centre and embodiment of universal 
 !: y in "h'erring though beautiful mythologies of former 
 fneswas gone.-Old things had passed away, behold all 
 Chad Lome new. The glory was departed from the 
 Delphic and Olympic shrines-" their oraeles were dumb - 
 am nid the cheerless twilight of decay, the shadows were 
 S'.alrin. round the portals of the idol fanes, tor lleason s 
 chw carried forth to meet the Crucified-who. travelling 
 l: te^catness of his strength, brought life and mmortality 
 to li'^lit within the world. 
 
 I 
 
|H 
 
 30 
 
 Humanity had gotten its Tdeal ; a higher than it dreamed of 
 -higher than any Avatar promised to the devotee kncehng 
 by the lotus-beds of Ganges ; higher yet than that gleam 
 of crhTW from the Eternal which made great Plato s spii it 
 ,bine-like Moses' face-with looking on it ; higher even than 
 the Hebrew hoped for in his spiritual degeneration, ihat 
 ideal was Christianity, as represented in the Divine life of its 
 Eternal Founder, and continued by him through all ages to 
 His redeemed Church, by which the dark world is l.ghteneu. 
 
 Within the limits of the present sketch, of necessity so 
 imperfect, little but a general allusion can be made to the 
 ceaseless progress of the Christian system as it went for h 
 conquering and to conquer. Brought into conflict as deadly 
 as any between the True and False must be, it triumphed 
 sianally in each successive shock, and emerged from tribula- 
 tion-as the moon from clouds, higher on its upward path 
 than when it entered. It abashed the philosophic pride ot 
 Greece ; it scorned the proffered place in the Roman Pan- 
 theon ; it sought to reign supreme in the human heart and 
 held it base to share with the Olympian Deities the sacrificial 
 offerincrs of the Pontifex Maximus ; and the opposition of that 
 ancient Heathenism to it.-even in the subtle form of later 
 Platonism-was as helpless as " the dreamy struggles ot 
 
 the stars with light." . 
 
 The Gods of all nations, all the glory and power of ancient 
 
 civilization, had been centred on the seven hills to confront 
 the new creed, and every effort was put foith for its extinc- 
 tion. Its noble army of martyrs in their dying added to its 
 life -To the lions with the Christians," was the cry in 
 every amphitheatre ;-natheless the christian gladiator stood 
 unmoved on the arena, looking homeward above the sea ot 
 relentless faces that begirt him, to the circle of calm blue sky 
 crownin<^ the uncovered building. His voice was missed among 
 
 m 
 
81 
 
 Vis bretiten that "'f V^"'„'|'L'^iiustrioLTxamplc, ma..y 
 
 heaven; »»d- 6-^'=; f'^r^ T «*, till tbe Trutl. pre- 
 another heart beat bolder for ttoij. ^ ,_ „„1 rt,e 
 
 .ailed-tm the altar fires f ^J ^ "^Cstantine resounded - 
 voiee of Christian t"umpl J"^^^^^ ^^^^^ „,,h- 
 
 tho empire. And «hen that omp^e le ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 Ihen tie foundaf.ns "^ — jj^lof rnde. resistless 
 
 a,e fountain, of the ^^t^^l^^^.^^^.X^o^ the tur- 
 barbarism swept a^ay the former ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ,(, 
 
 Wd of nations, clashmg ^; ^^ ;,„e our metaphor, 
 traees in the tossmg ^^fZuoi Christianity beamed un- 
 ^hieh agitated ^^''^'y-fl'^^t, and scattered a glad sh.m- 
 dimmed upon the troubled wate^B, an ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^ 
 
 Bering fla^h of glory f« and nea^ ^^^.^^ ^^^^^ 
 
 Huns, Goths, Vand Is, and t^ ^^^^ ^.^,^^ ^^^^.i^j 
 
 themselves eoncinered bj tue ^^ ^^^ Seandiaavmn 
 
 over the darkness "^««>^'*^ .»\^, „„Ue Northern heart 
 shores ; it ^ohe up a "-^ ^e J ^^^^^^ ,,, fl„,ers 
 
 with sueh rapidity as the ^"^^^'l } %te dawn-glory of 
 Z the foot-prints of departing y'" '. „f Thor. and 
 Balder the Beautiful, J>e—-»j;;^J^^ ,,, ..,,,,te 
 all the wild grandeur of ^»"^^" J „f Tlevelation they 
 Christ- in the ^t-nemg - Xfutnre ^^^^^^^^ „„ 
 found promise of ^ ""f I^X'/ ^^Gods." In ^-king to 
 hoyond the lurid "Twihght of the ^ ^^^ t„,„ fo^eed 
 aeLunt for eon.uests so -n-Jafc « ^^^_ ^^.^^ ,,^ „,. 
 to eulogize when labourmg '» ^ J^ ° J ^j Christianity are 
 ,ons he assigns for the unr.vaUed^ .f ^^ ^^^^ ^ ,„^,.,„ 
 
 palpably -^^cient, some of ttem ^^^^^^^ 
 ereed might be proud to uv^^ ^^.^^^^^ ^^^ ^h- 
 
 Christianlty, however, did not pr ^^^^^^^.^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 
 
 out oeeasional "ton^'™- |* y her on the beaeh. it 
 
 waves sweep baek ^^J^^ ^L^ as when Mah me , 
 
 too had its seasons of seernm^ 
 
Ammm 
 
 82 
 
 and his Caliphs led the desert spears resistlessly against the 
 cross ; when their proselytizing steel flashed terribly through- 
 out the East, and Saracen swarms made their war-cry the 
 creed of millions conquered in their long, victorious ride as 
 far as the Atl untie. Another ebbing-time was in the dark 
 ages, when worldly luxury and selfishness spread enervation 
 through the Church, and chilled the heart of civilization. 
 The Hght of Truth came through the Evil shadow in diatem- 
 tempered hues, as the white light changed in passing through 
 the stained cathedral windows of those mediaeval days. Art 
 forgot its mission, and ministered to superstition ; science lay 
 in prison with a Galileo, and waited in timid silence for the 
 morning wind to waft away the mists of error. Lawless par- 
 tizan violence harrassed communities: EcclesiLsticism by 
 turns was either inactive or encroaching, as the humour of 
 successive pontiffs varied— some parading in pompous, endless 
 ceremonial, sauntering through years of heedless ease, or 
 brooding on wild, ambitious schemes of empire. In this state 
 was the°Church, averse to progress, drowsed with supersti- 
 ious incense, and narrowing to unworthy aims— when she 
 was startled from her fatal lethargy by the hammering knock 
 of Luther nailing up his theses— the first standard of the 
 Reformation— on the Cathedral doors of Wittenberg. That 
 knock electrified all Europe, and roused a deep, strong cur- 
 rent of Reform, civil and religious, which is rolling still. 
 A'^ain the even tenor of advancement to -a full Ideal was 
 hampered in these last centuries, by the implacable hostility 
 of Atheism and the frenzy of Revolution ; and, in addition 
 to these spiritual and social obstacles, the more subtle Kitel- 
 lectual.pride of still later days. But these are merely the 
 ebbing oi Christianity's advancing billows, which recede but 
 to ro5 in huger volume further up the sands of Time. 
 
 And what is its position now ? It stands at present— espe- 
 ally in those lands in which it has been evolved from the 
 
le 
 
 38 
 
 eumbroas crudities of earlier ^'^'^y'-'J;^ jf J'^" y't laiu- 
 .rae. the Oooa, tUo BeauU« ^« ^ J^ 
 cd or over can attain. "^ wf ™ ^ ^ ,tiU around it, 
 ference, the black wings of ^^:> ^^^^^l^,, Christianity 
 but they serve by contrast to ■» f-'^/^^"^ „,,i ideal- 
 i„ its social aspeet-as an -'- ^^^^^^^^ „,,,as. F-odom 
 gains by coming in contact w.th tl« alser^ ^^.^__^^ 
 
 Ld Imiovement are «« Jjf ^^ :" a finer light in 
 
 ,re its hand-maids ; »'"''»S '^^^^iXe .ight of manhood, and 
 ,g,,... It 1- asserted th;d.- . 
 
 proclaims freedom '"'te s^^^ ^„„,„,ood; it has gwen 
 nised the proper socm «f •=';/' ^^^,4 , barrier to moral 
 
 expansion to the -t^l"; "1 ^^se ground of its Ideal, 
 J,,s ; and, raising >»an to the vantag g ^^^^^ ^^ ^ , .^^^^^ 
 
 it points through the gl«""'^J i„„,ortaV-and having 
 e.ltcnce-ahappmessennobh.gand ^^.^^, ^^ 
 
 done this can it meet a nval tn a y =^ ^^^^^s and 
 
 cross not con,ue,.d » t e couil^t « th th ^^J ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 systems, powerful though Jy J- .^^,.g„,,, ,ays 
 
 Uuperishable traces '''"'' ^^ „e,,iess land which, under 
 stream over to the nattonsfrom that pec ^^^^_^^^^ 
 
 Us fostering guidance, '?-';-;f J up eminent in such im- 
 
 to Athens in her palmiest days, ■'"^^ /j^^^,,, ^igh majesty. 
 
 pregnable, colossal strength as ma ^^ ^^^^ ^ 
 
 11 dimly beside *e/»Jt;t su erlr 'in those ne. 
 
 name of BN«t,..n. Has ^ J^' ;^, J ^,„ to seek "i Not 
 
 realms which its o.vtong power cna ^^^^^^^^^^ ; 
 
 ,o_-for Polynesia's g-- ; /*t ,be torrid wilds of 
 
 a common degenera.7 "f'^f; '^^ -..on in the polar seas. 
 
 Africa and the dreary «stes wmc 1 .^^ ^^„„ 
 
 China, cramped by ^l-"-'''^' J^.^S wonder has she 
 the threshold of invention : wit g^^^_ ^„^ 
 
 i "«i 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ^' 
 
 
r 
 
 34 
 
 Christianity Europe has deciphered Nature's context, and lit 
 successive lamps of Science to search still farther, so that a 
 Guttenburg has, with more than wizard skill, su.uu.oned from 
 the printing press a gigantic power to mould the wliole desti- 
 nies of mankind; a Newton, "sailing in strange seas ot 
 thourrht alone "-the first human soul who followed the Lter- 
 nal in those paths-has interpreted, as one inspu-ed the true 
 harmony of the spheres ; and a shining phalanx of tlie sons o 
 thouMit and enterprise have curbed the elements and tramed 
 them to man's service-and, by giving almost an intelligence 
 to matter, and a growing perfection to its energies, are fast re- 
 deeming nature from her helpless prostration under blighting 
 Evil. Christianity is triumphant in Divine Philosophy ; and 
 its enemies who frequent such schools as those of German 
 Pantheism and Rationalism feel more and more bewddered 
 by the intellectual maze wherein they stray ,-the cry from the 
 dying lips of the great German Master is also theirs, " More 
 
 A-ain, Mohammedanism, once the fierce rival of our taith, 
 lies faint and crippled on the confines of civdization. ihe 
 crescent moon of Islamism that, gleaming on the ^ green 
 banners of the Faithful, carried terror through contments, 
 draws surely to its setting. Once it shone triumphant from 
 the mountain-passes of Cabul, where the jeweled minarets 
 Ghizni, -the Celestial bride," flashed out like a vision 
 of enchantment-to the sunny borders of Castile, where the 
 Moor rolled back the serried bands of Christian Spam, and 
 lorded it in Alhambra's gorgeous halls. That pageantry has 
 passed away. The ancient Paynim fire-so brilliant once when 
 Saladin and his scimitars braved the heavy onset of the Latin 
 lances, and matched the red-cross chivalry-has long since 
 burnt out; and the Moslem now sees other masters of the 
 realms once subject to the Caliphate ; sitting in a contracted 
 emp ire which was won, and ruled, and therefore ruined by steel 
 
. 35 
 
 _eU-,o. »,.a ,w>e. ae.o..a jy;^- :t;:rSit 
 
 vevish reaction, of oppross.on »■"! ^ "» . „,, . ,,ev bul- 
 
 Wost coutinunUy increase .m l^^rff J,,o fcek, to pro«- 
 ^avks, while they protect, -» F«"- ^.^ c.uvchcs in Con- 
 trate him in .rremea.Ue ru n. Ur t ^^^^ 
 
 ^^^^^^--^^'^'^'!'^:,'S1'^ action bom of 
 he watches many »«« f"™'' "\ , f fl,,„ri.l.in.', when the 
 Christianity striking deep ""'/"J J" whui the daugh- 
 tbrone of Solyman is tottermg ^^'l^fl ^,, ,Uves of 
 
 ,ers of Islam f^'^^^X »f '>>» ^^'-' ''»^ 
 
 sensual despotism, the So^eWgn j champions to 
 
 poured beyond the f-pho^s a ^ an^ ^ 
 
 lattle for the r.ght ; and the Wy p,,i,,„„,,opy, 
 
 actuated by Ohristiamtys n>o^ >t J^^. 
 
 has in nis sight moved, bke a » ^^ ,,o„,a„hood 
 
 mounded warriors, assertmg the noble ^ ^^ ,^ „„a 
 
 _the right to sympathize and so to ode ^^^.^_,^^ ^.,^^ ;„ 
 
 hlessing, and assistance ^ 'W ^\;, , ao they all 
 
 sullen apathy »"^, ^^^''^^^^^ • '^„,erable mythic fancies of 
 Brahmanism, Budlnsm, tte imiun - ^^^^ y^^^_^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 
 
 earth's dark places, all wait the • ^,^^ ^.^;^g 
 
 angeW anthen. on the nigt, o^^^ - ^^^„ fo,,, .f 
 of domri-thousands, sittmg ^ha Ue ^^ ^.^^ ^,^.^,, 
 
 corrupt worship, start to their fe t^tW^J ^^ ^^^ .^ 
 
 come over the seas, callmg «" f^'^^^^^.f^he cruel mu. 
 the highest." Thew ^T^^^l^^ ^ V.^^^ -^ 
 derous wrong which "- ^' i^'\,„,,phcre of Greek and 
 Wood. Tor even J" *''". Sliest affections were shrivelled 
 BomanphilosophytheheartsHKst _^^^ ,,,„,, 
 
 with the frost of evd. Men eou ^ ^,^^„g,, 
 
 their passion for ^^-- f^J^ I, „„e word to denote 
 
 was to them an enemy-they ua Vilosophcr his 
 
 both. The priest fenced m us f A ^P.^^ ^^ p^,,^,, 
 dogmas, with dark mystery ; and wm 
 
 l# 
 
Jimmm 
 
 86 
 
 anlty is ''Ho, everyone." their cry was, Frocul Oproculeste 
 profani I Under Stoic teachings men moved through a barren 
 existence in joyless circles, running counter each to each, like 
 ripples on a rainy sea ; and even the Epicurean, by no moans 
 over precise, could suy " I hate and scout the vulgar 
 throng." The terms Philanthropy and Public benevolence, 
 in their Christian acceptation, are absent from their language ; . 
 their heathenism cannot show, like Cln-istianity, a Howard 
 and a Wilberforce ; there are no remains in ruined Thebes, 
 or Sparta, or Pompeii, of hospitals, asylums, and those 
 humane institutions which abound in countries blessed with 
 Gospel liMit. Ask the Hindoo of his belief, and he points 
 to the c^r of Juggernaut, the Suttee, and the weapon of 
 the Thug ; the African, hugging his n.onstrous fetis^i, points 
 to piles of grinning skulls.^and the bright Pacific Seas gird 
 haunts of violence and wiles. To such as these the cross 
 comes with its arms spread wide as east and west-proclaini- 
 incr peace and good will— and coming it prcvals. if its path 
 is°crossed by Evil— if the phantasms of error, gigantic with 
 the growth of centuries, are gathering all their force to 
 grapple with the advancing power of Truth, their efforts are 
 but the convulsive agonies which precede the powerlessness of 
 death. The winds of Liberty are abroad upon the earth, a 
 stir of life runs throbbing .hrough the moral wastes. There 
 is ever a roar and a crash in the vocs and the vales of 
 the Noith, when Winter, who keeps the land in swoon, 
 evanishes before the fair-faced Spring; the prolonged thunder 
 of icefields rending, many a mile.-the deafening echoes m the 
 hills when avalanches, like armies in the battle burst, dash 
 headlong downward, -must precede the surging music of 
 the free flashing waves and the breezy murmurs of the open- 
 in- leaves. So the wide resounding roar of roused liumamty 
 in^'either hemisphere betokens surely that a heavenly energy 
 is awakened. From continent to contintnt the Light sweeps. 
 
 rev 
 
 de( 
 
 pel 
 
 pr 
 
 th 
 
 th 
 
 w 
 
 n 
 
 t« 
 
 f 
 
 II- 
 
ii 
 
 deep cUing unto deep, ""=»/';; ^f „.„,ii „„d religious op- 
 j^/dlng «tmgglo -tl. the -k^e» ^^.^^^ ^^ ,„ 
 
 L».ion ..Hch hung. ^'■",7s\,aow»,-but higher yet m 
 ^bore ahove the honzon »- '" ^^'^ ,,„,, „„ .tor.n clouds, 
 the heaven the Cro., »";;\;''^„„ttantlnc ; and. UUe hun. 
 „here it onee .hone ou '» ^;„^,,,„ ,, This The V.e- 
 
 „„„ read '>'« r%"ily^e ^-k ''■''> "''"^'' ""' 
 t !" What though t e sky ^.^^^^^ ^„„ 
 
 foreboding, we can see that hop ot ^ ^^^^^ ^^^ 
 lough-even as the voyager on the ^^^^_ ^^ ^^^ 
 
 deep"!, canopied wa^ n;J^ J l^ ^.Ld his sUent 
 day-brealc east of ''« f ^ „ ^„„ v,,y„„d stream along 
 peaks, sees rays of the ri„en ^^^ ,„j„ ^^ 
 
 I, fissures in the -- 7;^^^' ,„y, ihe Wood-Wdt 
 darkness to announc he «J ° / ^uh tre«.U.ng 
 thrones of despotism totter, ^"f ' ™ „f ^.rilmtion, in charac- 
 „„ their palaee.walls,^vhe.;^»^^^, ^,„aer the Vn^ « 
 
 ters of fire, «'Ues M.^"'=-2Tn,perfection of their souVs Ideal 
 the Shadow, men pme a ^« ™V^ ^,,,en the Red sea 
 _there is a void, they "• l'^« ,,,^ ^,, the sea returned 
 ,,t,rs when they parted •">]^^ ";';„,a-and when a hlgh- 
 to his strength when the — M^ ^,^ ,,„u eou« 
 
 er morn shall dawn, the e»rrent » ^„ ^^^^^ ^ ,^, 
 
 a™n into the long '^«'7 '";„ „„^ ; but vainly shall -t 
 horning the darkness strug^sev^n-^^; ^^ ^.^,_^ .^^ ,, 
 
 struggle; for, ^^f '"£';, mLeh rosistlessly from sh^^^ 
 shadows, great Chr^ttamty >>l« ^,^,^^^„ i„ ,t huma- 
 
 to shore ; and naticn,s now hemghted ^._^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^,, 
 
 „itVs Ideal, and shall ^f^^^^^ ,„j the wisdom of the 
 Beautiful, the treasure f the bo 
 
 True. Then shall Truth 
 
. 88 
 
 "Rule the spacious world from clime to clime, 
 Her hand-maid arts shall every wild explore, 
 Trace every wave, and culture every shore. 
 Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains roam, 
 Trath, Mercy, Frecf^om, yet shall tind a home ; 
 "Where'er degraded nature bleeds and pines. 
 From Guinea's coast to Siber's dreary mines. 
 Truth shall pervade the unfathomcd darkness there, 
 And hght the dreadful features of despair ! " 
 
 Farther shall the tliseomfitecl Shadows flee away : farther, 
 farther, and still farther shall the Light pursue them : till, 
 spreading their dark vans of horror, they shall flee from under 
 our heaven ; and as the waters cover the sea, Truth's efful- 
 gence shall pour in upon the planet ; and humanity delivered 
 into light eternal shall realize its full Ideal ; a celestial splen- 
 dour, brighter than the light of countless suns, shall rise on 
 the new earth ; shall rise but never set, and night shall be 
 
 NO MORE ! 
 
r