The Divine Mystery

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X THE HOLY LAND I. The Bible. 2. Chronology of Palestine: The Canaatntr* 3. The Hebrews. 4. Israel 5. Takmeh. To the infant mind of our race the earth on which it trod was holy and mysterious, in the most awful and literal sense. The caves and woods, the streams and deserts, are not solitary for the savage, but peopled as thickly as the London streets, and peopled for the most part with secret enemies. The warfare of creation is carried on between invisible sorcerers, on some of whom he has natural claims for sympathy and protection, while the wrath of others can only be appeased by bloody sacrifices. The ancestral spirits of his family and clan are his Ahura-Mazda; the spirits of cold and fever, of the lion and the bear, of the hostile Amorites and Amalekites, are the Satans and Apollyons of the Holy War. The line between flesh and spirit is indistinctly drawn. On the one hand the ancestral wizard lives on at the same time in his tumulus, and in the body of his descendant. On the other the real Amalekites are confounded with the imaginary ones. In the great Persian epic the unknown mountain tribes with whom Rustam goes to war are throughout described as devils. The small dark Earthdwellers of the first age of Europe figure in our own folk tales under the name of gnomes and dwarfs and ogres as a fairy race.1 So, too, even the heavenly Elohim are entangled in the strifes of earth. The Gods of Ida descend to take part in the battle round Troy. The Signs in their courses fight against Sisera, and the Sun hearkens to the voice of a man. 1 The Kaboutermannekins described by Thorpe (above, p. 205, footnote) are so regarded by himself. The name meets us in Longfellow's ballad of the Carmilhan as that of a spirit--the Klaboterman. The...