-
Articles/Ads
Article THE THREE STEPS. Page 1 of 4 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Three Steps.
THE THREE STEPS .
AN INDIAN FABLE . LONG ere science had reared those graceful and majestic temples whose ruins on the sunny shores of Greece , the sandy plains of Egypt , the wilds of India , or the more desolate regions of the north , still strike the pilgrim with admiration of their chaste proportions , the gloomy cavern and consecrated grove had borne witness to the earldevotion of
many kind . The deep shade , —the solemn silence—the profound solitude of such retreats , inspired the contemplative soul with holy thoughts , and cherished in it the seeds of virtue and relig ion . The same situations were found equally favourable to the propagation of science , and tended to impress upon the minds of the hearers the awful dictates of wisdom and of truth . The Brahmins of Asia , and the Druids of Europe , were therefore constantly to be found in the recesses of the sacred grotto , or
in the bosom of the embowering forest . Here , undisturbed , they chanted forth their devout orisons to their Creator ; here , they practised the severities of bodily mortification ; here , they taught mankind the vanity of wealth—the folly of power—the madness of ambition . All Asia beside , cannot boast such august and admirable monuments of antiquity as the caverns of Salsette and Elephanta , and the sculptures that adorn them . They may be considered not only as stupendous subterranean temples of the Deity , but as having occasionally been used by the Brahmins for inculcating the profoundest arcana of those sciences
for which they were so widely celebrated throughout the East . The philosopher has not failed to observe that , from the deep obscurity of caves and forests , have , in every age , issued the light of wisdom and the beams of religion .. Zoroaster , the great reformer of the Persian magi , amidst the gloom of a cavern composed his celebrated system of theological institutions , which filled twelve volumes , and is known to the world as the Zend Avesta .
The renowned philosophers Epictetus and Pythagoras , who was himself a scholar of Zoroaster , sought wisdom in the solitary cell . Even the venerable prophets of the true relig ion took up their abodes in the desert . And the herald of the Messiah , whose meat was the locusts and wild honey , which those solitudes produced , declares himself to be , " The voice of one crying in the wilderness . " Groves sacred to religion and science , were sacred all over the East . Abraham is said to have
planted a grove at Beershebah , and to have called there upon the name of the Lord ; but his degenerate posterity afterwards prostituted ^ the hallowed grove to purposes of the basest idolatry . They were upbraided by the prophet with burning incense , and offering oblations under every tree , to the false gods of the Phoenicians and the neighbouring nations . The Druids of Gaul and Mona had the same veneration for groves of oak ; and , according to the Roman historians , practised the most horrid superstition , devoting to the gods , with many horrid ceremonies , the unhappy captives taken in war , Lucan , describing the Massilian grove , enumerates circumstances which make us shudder as we read .
Lucus erat , longo nunquam violates ab rcvo , Obscurum cingens connexis aiira ramis , —• Hunc non ruricolroe Panes , nemorunque potentes Sylvani Nymphrcque tcnent , sed barbara ritu
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Three Steps.
THE THREE STEPS .
AN INDIAN FABLE . LONG ere science had reared those graceful and majestic temples whose ruins on the sunny shores of Greece , the sandy plains of Egypt , the wilds of India , or the more desolate regions of the north , still strike the pilgrim with admiration of their chaste proportions , the gloomy cavern and consecrated grove had borne witness to the earldevotion of
many kind . The deep shade , —the solemn silence—the profound solitude of such retreats , inspired the contemplative soul with holy thoughts , and cherished in it the seeds of virtue and relig ion . The same situations were found equally favourable to the propagation of science , and tended to impress upon the minds of the hearers the awful dictates of wisdom and of truth . The Brahmins of Asia , and the Druids of Europe , were therefore constantly to be found in the recesses of the sacred grotto , or
in the bosom of the embowering forest . Here , undisturbed , they chanted forth their devout orisons to their Creator ; here , they practised the severities of bodily mortification ; here , they taught mankind the vanity of wealth—the folly of power—the madness of ambition . All Asia beside , cannot boast such august and admirable monuments of antiquity as the caverns of Salsette and Elephanta , and the sculptures that adorn them . They may be considered not only as stupendous subterranean temples of the Deity , but as having occasionally been used by the Brahmins for inculcating the profoundest arcana of those sciences
for which they were so widely celebrated throughout the East . The philosopher has not failed to observe that , from the deep obscurity of caves and forests , have , in every age , issued the light of wisdom and the beams of religion .. Zoroaster , the great reformer of the Persian magi , amidst the gloom of a cavern composed his celebrated system of theological institutions , which filled twelve volumes , and is known to the world as the Zend Avesta .
The renowned philosophers Epictetus and Pythagoras , who was himself a scholar of Zoroaster , sought wisdom in the solitary cell . Even the venerable prophets of the true relig ion took up their abodes in the desert . And the herald of the Messiah , whose meat was the locusts and wild honey , which those solitudes produced , declares himself to be , " The voice of one crying in the wilderness . " Groves sacred to religion and science , were sacred all over the East . Abraham is said to have
planted a grove at Beershebah , and to have called there upon the name of the Lord ; but his degenerate posterity afterwards prostituted ^ the hallowed grove to purposes of the basest idolatry . They were upbraided by the prophet with burning incense , and offering oblations under every tree , to the false gods of the Phoenicians and the neighbouring nations . The Druids of Gaul and Mona had the same veneration for groves of oak ; and , according to the Roman historians , practised the most horrid superstition , devoting to the gods , with many horrid ceremonies , the unhappy captives taken in war , Lucan , describing the Massilian grove , enumerates circumstances which make us shudder as we read .
Lucus erat , longo nunquam violates ab rcvo , Obscurum cingens connexis aiira ramis , —• Hunc non ruricolroe Panes , nemorunque potentes Sylvani Nymphrcque tcnent , sed barbara ritu