Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1846-01-15

perhaps never surpassed in power and gorgeous
magni6cence. But where is there even a relic
of Babylon now, save on the faithful pages OF
Holy Writ? The very place of It's existence Is
a matter of uncertainty and dispute. Alas! t!a'
the measure Of time should be doomed to ooIiV-
ion; and that those who first divided the year
into months, and invented the zodiac itself, should
take so sparing of Immortality as to be, IN the
lapse of a few centuries, confounded with natu-
raj phenomena of mountain and valley.
Who can certainly show US the site OF the
tower that was "reared against heaven" Who
were the builders Of the pyramids that have e%-
cited so much the establishment of modern ma
tons?
Where is Rome, the irresistible monarch OF
the east, the terror of the world Where are
the proud ediices other glory, the fame OF whlch
has REACHED even to, our time in classic viv1t
ness Alas, she, TOO, has faded away IN slns
and vices. Time has swept his unsparing
scythe over her gIories, and shorn this prince of
its towering diadems.
"IIer lonely columns stand sublime,
Finging their shadows from on high,
Like dials which the wizard Time
Hath raised, to count his ages by"
Throughout the range of our western wilI5,
down in Mexico, Yucatan, Bolivia, &c, travel
lcrs have been able to discover the most indispu-
table evidences Of extinct races Of men highly
skilled in learning and the arts, Of whom we
b,-o NO o,rtlIy ro,,11 envo 4ba rorootn, 1r ~.
wonderful works which time has spared for our
contemplation, On the very spot where forests
rise in unbroken grandeur, and seem to have
been exploded only by their natural inhabitants,
generation after generation has stood, has lived,
has warred, grown old and passed away; ard
not only their names, but their nation, their Ian
guage has persisted, and utter oblivion has clo-
sed over their once p%opuIous abode3. Who
shall unravel to us the magnificent rGins of Mex
leo, Yucatan, md Bolivia, over which hangs the
subIimest mystery, and which seem to have
been antiquities in the day Of Pharaoh? w no
were the builders Of those gorgeous temples,
obelisks, and palaces, now the ruins Of a power
full and highly cultivated people, whose national
existence was probably before that Of Thebes
or Rome, Carthage or Athens? Alas! there
is none to tell the tale; all is conjecture, and our
best information concerning them is derived only
from uncertain analogy.
How iorcibly do these wonderful revolutions,
which oyeTturn the master-works Of man, and
utterly dissolve his boosted knowledge, remind
US that God is IN t5cm all! Wherever the eve
is turned, to whatever quarter Of the world the
attention IS directed, there lie tilef remains VI
more powerful, more advanced, and more highly
skilled nations than ourselves, the almost obliter-
ated records of the mighty past. How SEEM
ingly well-founded was the d~elusion, and indeed
how current even now, that the discovery Of
Columbus first opened the way for a cultivated
people in the "new world" And yet how great
reason is there tor the conclusion, that while the
country of Ferdinand and Isabella was yet a
stranger to the cultivated arts, America teemed
with power and grandeur; with cities and tenn
plies, pyramids and mounds, in comparison with
which TIE buildings of Spain bear not the
slightest resemblance, and before which the rel
les of the old world are shorn of their gran
deur
All these great relics of still greater nations,
should they not teach us a lesson that God
is in history which man cannot penetrate? Il
the historian tells us truly that a hundred thous-
and men, relieved every three months, were thir-
ty years in erecting a single Egyptian pyramid,
what conclusion may we not reasonably form OF
the antiquities OF our continent, which ! is
almost by way of derision, one would suppose
styled the "ncv worH!-Literay EmPorjum.