It Was
A Druidical Altar, And The Most Perfect And Beautiful One Of The
Kind Which I Had Ever Seen.
It was circular, and consisted of
stones immensely large and heavy at the bottom, which towards the
top became thinner and thinner, having been fashioned by the hand
of art to something of the shape of scollop shells.
These were
surmounted by a very large flat stone, which slanted down towards
the south, where was a door. Three or four individuals might have
taken shelter within the interior, in which was growing a small
thorn tree.
I gazed with reverence and awe upon the pile where the first
colonies of Europe offered their worship to the unknown God. The
temples of the mighty and skilful Roman, comparatively of modern
date, have crumbled to dust in its neighbourhood. The churches of
the Arian Goth, his successor in power, have sunk beneath the
earth, and are not to be found; and the mosques of the Moor, the
conqueror of the Goth, where and what are they? Upon the rock,
masses of hoary and vanishing ruin. Not so the Druids' stone;
there it stands on the hill of winds, as strong and as freshly new
as the day, perhaps thirty centuries back, when it was first
raised, by means which are a mystery. Earthquakes have heaved it,
but its copestone has not fallen; rain floods have deluged it, but
failed to sweep it from its station; the burning sun has flashed
upon it, but neither split nor crumbled it; and time, stern old
time, has rubbed it with his iron tooth, and with what effect let
those who view it declare.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 92 of 809
Words from 25818 to 26095
of 222596
