The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 351, January 10, 1829Various
History
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 351, January 10, 1829
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
Songs and hymns, in honour of their Gods, are found among all people who
have either religion or verse. There is scarcely any pagan poetry,
ancient or modern, in which allusions to the national mythology are not
so frequent as to constitute the most copious materials, as well as the
most brilliant embellishments. The poets of Persia and Arabia, in like
manner, have adorned their gorgeous strains with the fables and morals
of the Koran. The relics of Jewish song which we possess, with few
exceptions, are consecrated immediately to the glory of God, by whom,
indeed, they were inspired. The first Christians were wont to edify
themselves in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs; and though we have
no specimens of these left, except the occasional doxologies ascribed to
the redeemed in the Book of Revelation, it cannot be doubted that they
used not only the psalms of the Old Testament, literally, or
accommodated to the circumstances of a new and rising Church, but that
they had original lays of their own, in which they celebrated the
praises of Christ, as the Saviour of the world. In the middle ages, the
Roman Catholic and Greek churches statedly adopted singing as an
essential part of public worship; but this, like the reading of the
Scriptures, was too frequently in an unknown tongue, by an affectation
of wisdom, to excite the veneration of ignorance, when the learned, in
their craftiness, taught that "Ignorance is the mother of devotion;" and
Ignorance was very willing to believe it. At the era of the Reformation,
psalms and hymns, in the vernacular tongue, were revived in Germany,
England, and elsewhere, among the other means of grace, of which
Christendom had been for centuries defrauded.--_Montgomery._
* * * * *
SUPERSTITION.
Grievously are they mistaken who think that the revival of literature
was the death of superstition--that ghosts, demons, and exorcists
retreated before the march of intellect, and fled the British shore
along with monks, saints, and masses. Superstition, deadly superstition,
may co-exist with much learning, with high civilization, with any
religion, or with utter irreligion. Canidia wrought her spells in the
Augustan age, and Chaldean fortune-tellers haunted Rome in the sceptical
days of Juvenal. Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, and Lilly, the
astrologer, were contemporaries of Selden, Harrington, and Milton.
Perhaps there never was a more superstitious period than that which
produced Erasmus and Bacon. _--Blackwood's Mag._
* * * * *
"FELLOW" FEELING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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