The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-02-17

Sargon l.. ruler of Northern BabyIonia
some $500 years before Christ, discov-
cred the principle when he pushed his
conquests past syria and past Palestine
even into Cyprus and thus blazed a
trail for every subsequent eonqueror
! until the Greek put the Persian under
his feet at Arbela. Sargon's campaign
was stroke of human genius 1900
years older than the date commonly
assigned to Abraham. Only a COM
paratively few years ago a cylinder
was unearthed in Cyprus inscribed by
the Vlceroy of Naram-Sin, the son of
TINS Great sargon--a precious relic dat
ing back, if authentic, some $500 years
onward from the day of this mighty
warrior and reaching back of him how
TAR We do not know, Syria and Pales-
tine formed part of the highway that
bound the hoary sister states, Baby
lon1a and Egypt, in agelong rivalry.
Back and forth the armies rushed in
strife that never ceased except when
both parties utterly worn out slept the
sleep of internal dissension for periods
measured by decades. The more virile
Babylonian carried with him in his
raids his civilization and his letters.
Schools, for the study of his language
sprang up at points along this route.
He wrote his thoughts and records OF
his doings in curious arrowheaded
characters on tablets of baked clay
and collected those in libraries which
gave names to Palestinian towns. His
religion, full of myth and legend,
travelled with his speech. In the day
when Abraham in revolt against the
superstitious and cruel idolatry of his
countrymen is pictured as setting forth
with his retainers upon this royal road
for a land freer from priestly domina-
ton than Mesopotamfa, these mythical
stories of the creation of the earth and
the origin of sin fingered in sthe mem
ory of the patriarchal household.
Wherever the company wandered they
found the same tales modified doubt
less by the tradition of each tribe they
encountered. Today we have them
preserved to us in all their grotesque
proportions exactly as they were trac-
ed upon the soft clay by the scribes
of forty, fifty or sixty centuries ago.
These myths and legends formed the
earliest religious inheritance of the
Hebrew people. They were never
wholly forgotten. AS contact with
new tribes brought fresh myths of
ancient times, as prophet after prophet
arose to correct now one then another
Of the crude notions of his countryrnen
with nobler revelations of the True |
God, the grosser superstitions fell |
away until in the course of ages there |
remained the conception of the creation /
which is found in the second chapter /
Of Genesis. Bhat may be dated in it's 4
original written form roughly from /
the 8th or 9th century before Christ. /
Then the great moulders of Hebrew |
religious thought came upon the scene, /
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Joel, Micah, Jere-
niah and their contemporaries. These !
men made the faith of the nation /
Under these giants the religious ideals |
IF the people We're re-created. We can t
not tarry now to describe this move
nent- Enough to say that with the /
sole exception of the time of Jesus 1t |
vas the era Of the grandest development I
IF religious thought and of the most |
intimate revelation of God which /
has ever known or is likely /
o experience. In the crucible of this
Continued on Page Seven1.