Ancient Symbol Worship Author:Hodder M. Westropp, C. Staniland Wake Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION. Baal. .... None older is than I. When Man came forth, The final effort, wrung from monstrous forms, And Earth's outwearied forces could no more,... more » I warmed the ignorant bantling on my breast We rose together, and my kingdom spread From these cold hills to hamlets in the palms, That grew to Memphis and to Babylon : While I on towers and hanging terraces, In shaft and obelisk, beheld my sign Creative, shape of first imperious law. " Masque of the Godt," liy Bayard Taylor. The classic scholar whose studies have hardly exceeded the limits prescribed in the curriculum of the universities, and the biblical student whose explorations of the Hebrew Scriptures have not led him beyond the field of exegesis and theological pursuit, are ill-prepared to hear of a larger world than Greece, Rome, and Palestine, or of an archaic time which almost remands the annals of those countries into the domain of modern history. Olympian Zeus with his college of associate deities, afterward Latinized into Jupiter and his divine subordinates, and the Lord alone with his ten thousands of sacred ones, comprise their idea of the supernal world and its divinities. Beyond, they recognize a vague and misty chaos of mythologies, which, not accurately understanding, they superciliously affect to despise. Whoever would be really intelligent, must boldly explore that chaos, .voyaging through the " outer world " away from Troy and Greece, as far as Ulysses went, and from biblical scenes to the very heart of the ancient empires. There is no occasion for terror, like that displayed by the mariners who sailed with Columbus into the unknown ocean. Wherever man is to be found, like instincts, passions, hopes, and ambitions will attest a common kindred. Each person's life is in some manner repeated in t...« less