United States or Vatican City ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"In times," says Kemble,* "when there was neither pen, ink, nor parchment the bark of trees and smooth surfaces of wood or soft stone were the usual depositaries of these symbols or runes hence the name run-stafas, mysterious staves answering to the Buchstaben of the Germans. * Archaeologia, vol. xxviii. On Anglo-Saxon Runes.
Now he brushes aside all Annas's attempts to impose on him the sanctity of its decrees, and flatly denies that the Council has any more right to command than any other 'men. They claimed to be depositaries of God's judgments. This revolutionary fisherman sees nothing in them but 'men, whose commands point one way, while God's point the other.
Thus neglected by those who would have been its most faithful depositaries and most effective champions, the fame of the musical composer has been left to the guardianship of the few sound and enlightened judges who thoroughly comprehend him, to the humble but honest admiration of professional performers, to the practice and imitation of effeminate amateurs, to the cant of criticism of the worthies on the free list, and to the instinctive applause of the popular voice.
Beside or in his humble dwelling, the learned Hindu pandit receives and teaches and shares his poverty with his four, five, or it may be twenty disciples, who are to be the depositaries of his lore, and in their turn its transmitters. Such an institution is a Sanscrit tol, where ten to twenty years of the formative period of a young pandit's life may be spent.
After the conquest of the Gauls by the Franks, the Christian clergy, sole depositaries of all lights to lighten their age, and sole possessors of any idea of opposing the conquerors with arguments other than those of brute force, or of employing towards the vanquished any instrument of subjection other than violence, became the connecting link between the nation of the conquerors and the nation of the conquered, and, in the name of one and the same divine law, enjoined obedience on the subjects, and, in the case of the masters, moderated the transports of power.
These few grave men, seen at so late an hour, by dim candle lights, the leaders of an armed insurrection, usurpers of all power, rule and supremacy in a City of at least sixty thousand inhabitants; whose commands thousands of their armed fellow citizens obeyed implicitly; who, in disregard of all law, arrested, imprisoned, tried and executed offenders; but whose power, boundless and undisputed as it seemed, rested solely on the conviction of their fellow men that they were just, wise, patriotic and true; would faithfully administer the despotic power of which they were the depositaries; and cheerfully resign it whenever the work of the regeneration of society was accomplished.
The Kahuna, especially those of the race of Paao, were the natural depositaries of history, and took the revered title of Mo'olelo, or historians. Some individuals of this stock still exist, and they are all esteemed by the natives, and regarded as the chiefs of the historical and priestly caste.
If checks of this description are sufficient, the philosophy of constitutional government is but solemn trifling. All trust in constitutions is grounded on the assurance they may afford, not that the depositaries of power will not, but that they can not misemploy it.
In short, it may be taken as a fact, that, until the period of the French invasion, the true government of the Spanish nation had been a theocracy in the hands of forty or fifty thousand individuals, freed from all responsibility with respect to the civil power, united among themselves by the bonds of a common interest, and forming a privileged caste, considered generally as the depositaries of divine power.
It was not his protest against the over-government of the Federalists that made him popular, it was his assertion that the people at large were the best depositaries of power. Jefferson had taken hold of the "great wheel going uphill." He had behind him the mighty force of the popular will.
Word Of The Day