The devices upon places of worship are always of a religious kind. Would the perpetration of a _faithless infanticide_ be considered an act of religion? And, if not, why emblazon it within the tabernacle of prayer, with all the circumstances of grace and of grandeur around it?--solemnised by kings! superintended by gods! and executed by judges! Oh! sir, a dire plague of astringent benightment has lain brooding over history! and spread, like the _upas_, its baleful emaciation over everything of culture that fell within its shadow! But _truth_ is _immortal_: and, however _momentarily suppressed_, will _ultimately_ recover. “It is a pleasure,” says Bacon, “to stand on the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventurers thereof below; _but no pleasure is comparable to the standing on the vantage-ground of truth_ (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), _and to see the errors, and wanderings and mists and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride_. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.” The very dresses, which adorn these venerable delineations, are enough to redeem them from the turpitude which Mr. P---- would impute to them. O’Connor and MacMurrough were, neither of them, on this earth, for at least _two thousand years after_ these were in vogue! neither are they by any means the habits which P---- would persuade us that “laws were subsequently enacted to abolish as barbarous!” Behold! I show you a mystery![387] [Illustration] What do you see here?[388] What do you make of this Mr. P----. Or do you think that O’Connor went over into Nubia, and got the impress of his enormity canonised there also, in the form of a cross, within the temples and sanctuaries of the adoring Egyptians? I copy this image from a work of great value, lately published in Paris by Monsieur Rifaud; which he designates by the title of _Voyage en Egypte et en Nubie, et lieux circonvoisins_. The plate under notice is but part of a larger one, which he describes as “Façade du petit temple de Kalabche (en Nubie) et ses détails intérieurs,” and of which I shall, by and by, treat you to two more compartments, as the exact correspondents of the six crowned figures at Knockmoy. Meanwhile, I beg leave to introduce to you on the next page, some of the sculptures on the Tuath-de-danaan _cross_, at old Kilcullen, in the county of Kildare, Ireland. Here you distinguish nine _Budhist_ priests in the _Eastern_ uniform, with _bonnet_, _tunic_, and _trouser_--nay, with their very _beards_ dressed after the Egyptian fashion.