The Bible in Spain: Or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman, in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the PeninsulaBorrow, George
Religion
The Bible in Spain: Or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman, in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula
Borrow, George
Borrow, George, 1803-1881 -- Travel -- Spain; Spain -- Description and travel; Spain -- History -- 19th century
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. There it stands, and
he who wishes to study the literature, the learning, and the history of
the ancient Celt and Cymbrian, may gaze on its broad covering, and glean
from that blank stone the whole known amount. The Roman has left behind
him his deathless writings, his history, and his songs; the Goth his
liturgy, his traditions, and the germs of noble institutions; the Moor
his chivalry, his discoveries in medicine, and the foundations of modern
commerce; and where is the memorial of the Druidic races? Yonder: that
pile of eternal stone!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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