Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1855-01-17


carry on, and carry out. But that the
lordly Roman should see 10 the little band Of
meek ones thst fed to Pella 10 the mountains,
the germiuating principle Of this predomina-
ting power from the east; was not % be ex-
pected. One Of their governors some 40
years before bad yielded to their clamor. and
crucfied the founder of this humble sest !;
ana they bad perhaps forgotten it true. il
soon grew. Gas Pliny said a few years AFTER
10 be most numerous sect, filing oil Asia
Minor; true II is that Gre could not burn them
out, and wild beasts enough could not be
found to destroy item, the sword was blunt
ed'with their slaughter, and the earth satia-
ted with their blood still do they grow, and
swell, ard spread, and multiply; until their
crowned Constantine. the emperor OF The
fourth great dynasty, bows to the Crucifed
and places the Grass apon the Labarum.
These wonderful records, hoary with their
gray antiquity, intact, and entire, from their
miraculous preservation, existing under the
old covenant, before any extant history was
written; contain, in the most wonderful sim
plicity of style, the earlier narrative Of the
worlds history. The imperfect traditions Of
almost all nations are manifest references to
the same facts. The Egyptian, the Greek,
the East Indian, and the Chinese myths
and ancient traditions; all point to the two
first progcnitors of cur race--to their sinless
creation their fall to the antidiluyian lon
gevity-and gigantic races-to the wonder
full deluge-the perpetuation Of the race by
one family saved in the ark--to change of
temperature, and climate, and decrement of
the human lifetime to the place of the new
cradle of the human family all so clearly
and plainly stated in the first book of Moses.
until the dispersion and barbarism of many
nations, and the changes Of dynastics have
dimmed the continuous record of universal
tradition-but which still shines out in the
Bible, in the history of the chosen race, that
sprang from the loins of the friend Of God,
the man of the East; in whose seed, all the
nations of the earth were to be best
This wonderful B ook con aims first of all
a revelation Of the Supreme Being, to whom
all nations, tribes and kindred of men, have
bowed in some form, in all time,-
"As Father of all--in every age, in every cline
adored
BY saint, by savage, or by sage-Jehoyah, Jove
or Lord"
Let us take from the Same profsoe histo~
rion Tacitus who sncers at the unsocial,
strange Jews; his own version of their idea
of God. "With regard the says in the 9th
See. of the 9Th book of his history to the
Deity their creed is different. The Egyp-
tians worship various animals and also GER
tain symbolical representations, which are
the works of man the Jews acknowledge
one God only, and him they see in the minds
eve and him they adore in contemplation,
condemning as impious idolatry, all who with
perishable materials, wrought into human
form; attempt to give representation OF the
Deity The God of the Jews is the great
governing mind, that directs and guides the
whole frame of nature, eternal, infinite, aud
neither capable Of change nor subject to de-
cav" And he who could pen this lofty DEF
milton, in the same section, sneers at the
gloomy ceremonies and absurd enthusiasm of
the Jews religion, because they were MT
celebrated with the carousing banquets OF
the drunken bachanals, and debased by the
obscene rites of the Bona Dea--so let it
stand, as happy key, to the hatred OF the
Gentiles to sublime faith as an irresista-
bic confirmation Of Gods word which has
always said to the Jew and CHRISTIAN
Stone cut my people, Com among them and
be ys separate"
Two hundred and lightweight years be
fore the great central and eliminating event,
to which all prophecy and sacred poetry, aud
sacrifice and prototypes pointed this book
which we seek to disseminate, was care July
translated under the auspices of wise king
of Egypt, Ptolcmy, into the Greek-the
growing language Of the then civilized world
All the wise and good, could see the copies
OF e Crom the Alcxandrine library -Socra-
tts perhaps, caught bis glimpse Of truth from
the scptuagint and Plato stole his sublime
s2eculations from its sacred pages-still was
il sealed book, to all who could not see by
Faith, the coming man, God who was not
to be after the model Of the Caesars and Al
exandsrs, but to be as Plato said, ''one who
should even be hated for his virt1cs, and die
FOR his eaenlies.p Still, even Plato could
sat see the depth of the mystery that it was
to 10 God manifest in the flesh. Abraham
and Moses and Job and Isaiah, could lay
hold upon this mighty doctrine-but them