Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-11-09

petI1OneG TO Ordaln cOnIeSSOfS, to au-
thorize the reservation of the sacra-
ment, and to prepare a itany for the
Blessed Virgin, practically rejecting
the Protestant revolution of 1858, and
going back to tla CEE7ch Of Rome
DIR. Pussy freely breaches now
doctrines for which he was condemn
ed and suspended two years in 1843.
The British Quarterly contends that
the great majority of the English
Church and of the nation in general.
approved the sentence as not only de-
served, but as absolutely demanded in
the interests of Protestant truth. If
this idea was sound and truthful thirty
years ago, is it less so now? Speaking
of Protestant churches the Reuieac saws:
cat the present hour we have affairs
blazing with light, adorned with all
kinds of embroidery, and wrapped in
clouds of incense, and priests arrayed
in gorgeous and symbolic vestments-
all intended to give greater emphasis
and distinctness to DR.. Pusey's old
doctrine, only set forth with a strength
Of expression and an intensity of pas
sion which markedly contrasts with
his more measured phraseology."
Penitenta in confessRl boxes who have
received absolution which was to pre-
pare them for 'holy communion" and
other ceremonies, do not appear to be
agreeable objects to sincere reformers
who think and speak in the use of the
Engl sh language. Claiming to be tie
Established Church, the Evangelicans
assume the right land use it, to perpe-
trate any amount offolly with impunity y,
and an omnipotent Parliament is bound
by the Constitution to support them,
right or wrong An abuse of power,
either IN Church or State, always
strengthens the opposition. Govern
ment religion is exposed to many sore
temptations, and indirectly fos-
ters infdeli'y if not atheism.
Who will lead the next great reform
and eliminate all existing error and
folly? Truth is indestructible, but like
gold, deep in hard granite rock, it
can only be had in a pure state, by
much labor. It is, however, worth vast
ly more than any metal, and should be
sought for its own sake. There are
some things that money cannot pur-
chase One is truth, and another hon
esty, and another genuine piety. The
Church of England controls too much
wealth not to be mercenary and selfish
in the distribution of so many fat liv-
ings and salaries. Men pray not to be
led into temptation, but are slow to
follow the example of Paul. All good
people should go for the separation of
Church and State.
From an article on ''The Odyssey of
Homer" We make an extract which
completely upsets the pretentious claim
of DR.. Schlieman to having discovered
the ruins of ancient Troy. The writer
says:
The old idea-the idea, no doubt, held
by the authors Of the poems themselves
that the Tale of Troy" was real his
tory is almost universally relinquished in
the present state Of pathological science and
criticism. That site exists in the TrOad
Bunarbarshi) nearly corresponding with
the general Trojan scenery in the Had,
does not prove more than, if indeed so
much as, a personal knowledge on the part
of the poet of localities where the tIadi-
tions were resident. He might have visited
the spot, and SO localized myth, by max
ing the persons who represented the solar
phenomena real kings or princes of the soil.
Some pains have been taken, e. g., by DR..
Hayman, in his Appendices g. and -,
to identify PhRacia, Ithaca, Dulichium.
Same, Of the odyssey, with Corcyra and
the Ionian group. Even if the identity, be
it more or less clear, could be established,
the Homeric PhRacia Of the original myth
would be still ''clOudland." Ulysses re-
turning to Penelope would still be only the
sun returning to his chamber in the East
"That both the Had and the Odyssey
were, in their remote origin, solar legends,
is an opinion which, we think, is gaining
ground with most thinking men and most
impartial philologers. Both Prot. Max
Muller and MIR. Cox in his Aryan
Mythology have labOred to show this. and
indeed have insisted on it as almost obyi-
Ously true, and as furnishing the only rea-
sonable account of the general features and
scheme OF those great poems. All ethical
explanations of the principal character, in
fact, as Mr.. Cox truly says, leaves the
groundwork of both tales, and their issues,
in greater mystery than ever. OF course,
it is readily granted, and it is most impOr-
tant to observe, that at the time, whatever
that may have been, when the poems as We
have them were composed, all notion of
that kind had long been lost; and thus the
heroes are all described as living men, with
a graphic reality which shows that nothing
but an historical or Semi-hiStOrical event
was present to the mind of the composer.
In other words, the Greek rhapsOdeS, of
whatever age, were wholly unconscious
that they were rendering a solar legend.
Achilles, nevertheless, has many character
istics, descended from the primitive poems
of the far East, which it is almost impOSsi-
bic not to identify with the lusty sun-god
in his dazzling and uncOnquerable might.
at may be objected that if the composers
of the Had and the Odyssey were quite
that they We're describing a
solar myth, and fully believed, as they APP
pear to have done, in the human. perhaps
even the historic, characters of their heroes;
this is a descent from the sublimeto lower
grade of thought and conception, suchas can
hardly be accounted for. There is. without
doubt, mystery in the law of myths.
which, like wOrd-roOts, seem in, a manner
incapable of extinction, but keep breaking
out again, even in nursery tales of the most
trivial kind, as has been shown of German
and Scandinavian, as well as of English
popular stories. If the origin of the HO-
meric poems can be traced back, as a COM
parsOn of Greek with Sanscrit names seems
to show, to the land Of the We
das, to the people whose religion
was the praise and the invocation
Of the bright Orbs Of the sky; these
primitive lays, as they were gradually
carried westward into more cloudy lands
where fire-worship and slln-Worshlp had
not the same hold on the peOple's minds