The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1844-06-03
Moral and Religious.


Tho ruins Of kingdoms Tho relics Of mighty
empires that were Tho overthrow or decay Of the
master W. Us Of man is, ofOl objects that enter the
mind the most affecting. The high wrought per-
fecton of beauty and art born but TO pcrsh and
decay is seen and felt be inherent law of their
being. But such is the nature of man, that even
while gazing upon the relics Of unknown nations,
which have survived all history, he forgets his own
porishable milton in the spectacle of enduring great
ness.
We know of no spectacle well calculated to
teach human humiliation, and convince US Of the ut
tor ragily orthc proudest monuments OF art, rs The
roles which remind us of vast populations that have
PASSED from the earth, and the empires that have
crumbed into ruins. We rend upon their ruins OF
the past tho ruins Of the present. We feel if all
the cities OF men built on foundations beneath
which the earthquake slept and that abide in tho
midst ofthe same doom which has already swallowed
90 much OF the records Of mortal magnifcence.-
Under such emotions we look all human power as
Goundationless and view the proudes nations Of the
present as covered only with the of their desc
laiion.
The Assyrian empire nike the terror and
wonder Of the world, and Babylon perhaps never
surpassed in power and gorgeous magnifcence. But
where 10 there even n relic of Babylon saved
the faithful pages of Holy Writ The very pace of
ia existence is matter Of uncertainty and dispute
Alas that the of time should be doomed to
oblivion; and that those who first divided the year in
to months, and invented the zodiac itself should take
sp0Eingy OF Immortality TO be in the lapse of
few centuries COMPOUNDED with natural phenomena of
monntuin and valley.
Who certainly show the site OF the Tower
A. ,l.o
builders CT the pyramids that has excited so much
establishment Of modern nations
Where is Rome, the irresistible monarch OF the
east the terror of the World ? Where the proud
edifces Of her glory the fame of which has reached
to our time in classic vvidness Alas she too,
has faded away in sins and vices. Time has swept
his unsparng scythe over her glores and shorn the
prince of its towering dladems,
:'IIer lonely columns stand sublime,
Flnging their shadows from on high
Like dias, which the wizard TIME,
Has raised TO count his ages by"
Throughout the range orour Western wids, down
10 Mexico, Yucaan, Bolivia, Sc travellers have been
able TO discover the most indisputabe evidences of
our extinct of men highly skilled in learning
and the arts Of whom have earthly record,
cave the remains Of their wonderful works which time
has spared FOR our contemplation. On the very spot
where forests rise in unbroken grandeur, and seem
to have been explored only by their natural nhabi-
tants, generation after generation has stood, has
lived, has wurred, grown old and passed away;
and not only their names but their nation, their
languages have persisted and utter Oblivion has closed
over their once popular abodes. Who shall unravcl
TO us the magnificent ruins of Mexico, Yucatan, and
Bolivia. over which hangs the snbmest mystery, and
x,yhis hova in he of
Phardoah Who were the builders of those gorge
ous temples, obelisks and palaces, now the ruins of
q powerful and highly cultivated people, whose
tionul existence probably before that of Thebes
or Rome. Carthage or Athens , Alas there is
70 tell the tale; all is conjecture and best infor-
nation concerning them is derived only from
lain analogy.
How forciby do these wonderful revolutions, which
oveiturn the master works of man land utterly dissolve
his boosted know ledge, remind us that Con is IN
THEM ALL Wherever the eye is turned,to what
quarter Of the world the attention is directed,
there lie the reuans Of more powerful more advance
ed, and moro highly skilled nations than ourselves the
almost obliterated records Of the mighty past How
seemingly well founded was the delusion and indeed
how current now, that the discovery of Column
bus first opened tho way for cultivated people in the
new world And yet how great is there for
the conclusion, that while the country of Ferdinand
and Isabella was yet stranger to the cultivated arts
America teemed with power and grandeur; with cities
md temples, pyramids and mounds, in comparison
with which the buildings of Spain bear not the slight
est resemblance, and before which the relics of the
old world are shorn Of their grandeur.
All these great relics Of still greater nations, should
they not teach us lesson Of humiliation, confirming
as they do, the truth that God is in history which
man cannot penetratel If the historian tells us truly
that hundred thousand men, relieved every three
months, were thirty years in erecting single pyra-
mid, what conclusion may we not reasonably form of
the antiquities of our own continent, which is almost
by way Of dersion, one would suppose, styled the
''ne,o iborld J!