Stephens City star. (Stephens City, Va.) 1881-1883, 1883-04-28
SACRED BOOKS.
The Bible as Known to the Ancients

lC LOION ilSl oEANbSlA Va oliO ptt-
cred books of the world is from a Bible
class lesson by Prof. II. A. Ford, in
New York mi~son Sunday school:
Certain religious instincts, as the
consciousness Of Supreme Being, of
life beyond the grave, of future re-
wards and punishmcnts, of sense of
sin and the need of sacrifice, are COM
mon to humanity. So also, wherever
a nation has had literature, its reli-
gion has usually based upon sacred
books-there is the assertion Of writ
ten revelation. Every great religion
has it's Bible.
The best known of these books, save
the Jewish and the Christian, is the
Koran of Mohammed. The title of
this means "The Reading" from the
Arabic verb for "to read" Other
names are Al Kitab, or the book; AL
Moshaf, the volume; Al Dhikr, the ad-
monition or reminder; and AL Forhan,
or the salvation. The ia suras or
chapters Of the Koran were professedly
given to Mohammed during the twenty
three years Of his residence at Mecca
and Medina, by the angel Gabriel in
| human form, as an inspiration from
Aleah, or the Almighty. They were
written upon leaves, bits of leather or
paper, shoulder-blades of mutton and
whatever else was at hand, and thrown
loosely into a box, from which they
were taken a year after she prophets
death and put together with equal
loos eness and disregard to connection
of topics. in volumes. The chapters
bear such titles as The Cow, The Fig.
The Star, The Towers, The Congealed
Blood, and the like, giving some hint
of contents. Each begins thus: "In
the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate" and note is made of
the revelation at either Mecca or
Medina. Not only is the God of the
Christians recognized, but also Jesus,
but not as the Son of God, and Abra.
ham, Jacob and Mary and the Old
Testament worthless. The style Of the
Koran is of singular elegance and
beauty, constituting it the classic Of
Arabic speech. 1t j., the text book of
Moslem faith and likewise of civil gov
ernment in all the Moslem countries.
Copies Of it are greatly revered and are
sometimes written in gold and jewels.
1t is never held by the believers below
the girdle or touched without previous
publication. Nothing is more hateful
to the Musselman than to see copy in
the hands of a giaour or infdel.
A much more ancient collection of
writings is the Vedas, the oldest books
in the Hindoo literature and dating
far back Of the time Of Christ. The
oldest hymn of the oldest book, the
Rig Veda, is thought t. date from
B. G. 2400. The Upanishads, or treat
ises of theology, are later, and are al
most the only part of the Vedas now
read. The four visions of the Vedas
contain in all 1910 hymns, which every
Brahml Dlust learn by heart. They
are rec lzed by the Laws of Mann
which form the textbook Of Brahmin.
ism. They were written in twelve
books ten to nine centuries before
Christ The mythology of the Hin.
docs is comprised mainly in two great
epic poems, the Ramavana and the
Mahabharata, containing respectively
$4,000 and 10000 lines, and together
filing eighteen ge volumes. These
are now almost exclusively read as the
sacred books of India, with the Puranas
of similar character but much later date
The Shasters or Shastras ("books" is Q
general term for all the authoritative re-
ligious and legal works Of the Hindoos
The Buddhist sacred books are also
very numerous, but find no name for
them except the "Pitchas," or Buddhist
scripture, in the Pale language, found
in Ceylon.
The Zend-Avesta (i e., the text or
scripture with a zend, orcommen.
, tary) is the bible Of the an.
cient Parsees or hre-worshipers. 1t is
supposed to have been written in Bee
tria or eastern Persia, 1850 to 1900
years before Christ, by Zoroaster OF
Zarathustia. Unlike most other sa
cred books, it is not a body of divinity
, or dogmatic religion, but it is liturgy
, a collection of prayers. hymns, invoca
: tions and Thanksgiving to many del
/ ties 1t is manual of worship, to bt
: recited by the priests in public, and
, read privately by the laity. The
, Budde-Nosch is later book Of the
! same religion, and details the Parsee
} doctrine from texts now lost.
/. The religion Of Confucius, the prin
5 cipal faith of China, is taught in the
Q five and four books of the Kings
/ "King," in Chinese, means simply ;
e web Of cloth, or the warp that hold,