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On this area were one or two towers forty or fifty feet high, in which stood the images of the presiding deities. In front of the towers was the stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were kept burning, inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta.
"Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves." Deut. xiii. chapter throughout. Judges ii. 2. "And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; you shall throw down their altars," &c. Zech. xiii. 2, 3.
The most powerful and the most civilised of its kingdoms, about to conquer the rest, shut up its churches, desecrated its altars, massacred and persecuted their sacred servants, and announced that the Hebrew creeds which Simon Peter brought from Palestine, and which his successors revealed to Clovis, were a mockery and a fiction. What has been the result?
They were the censers which the Christian priests swung before the altars, on which blood never flowed; but wine and the consecrated bread were changed into the blood of Him who had given himself for generations yet unborn. To the deep, stone-walled cellars of the Viking's loghouse was the young captive, the Christian priest, consigned, fettered with cords round his feet and his hands.
It is well that there should be at least one poet of Beauty of Beauty alone of Beauty and naught else. It is well that one should dare to follow that terrible goddess even to the bitter end. That pitiless marble altar has its victims, as the other Altars.
The sides of the dock generally consist of stone steps called altars for the purpose of fixing the lower ends of the shores, and also for the convenience of supporting the workmen's scaffold. Mr. James and family, including myself, left the yacht to the crew and workmen, while we further explored the city of Buffalo in carriages, thoughtfully provided for us.
Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together in splendid rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of wonders, walked through miles of palaces, and rested in dark corners of great churches; where there were winking lamps of gold and silver among pillars and arches, kneeling figures dotted about at confessionals and on the pavements; where there was the mist and scent of incense; where there were pictures, fantastic images, gaudy altars, great heights and distances, all softly lighted through stained glass, and the massive curtains that hung in the doorways.
The demon was the intellect of Alexander Farnese; but it had been assisted in its labour by the hundred devils of envy, covetousness, jealousy, selfishness, distrust, and discord, that had housed, not, in his camp, but in the ranks of those who were contending for their hearths and altars. And thus had the Prince arrived at success in spite of every obstacle.
Five thousand priests chanted night and day before the altars. Consecrated fountains and gardens of holy flowers were there, mingling barbaric fanaticism with natural beauty. In describing these matters the old priests and monks gave free scope to their imaginations.
Many persons do Madame Bonaparte, the mother, the honour of supposing that to her assiduous representations is principally owing the recall of the priests, and the restoration of the altars of Christ.
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