Monuments were early erected in grateful commemoration of religious events, as the hill of stones by Jacob and Laban; or to gratify secular ambition, as was exemplified in the tower of Babel. In Greece, when the pioneers were feeble, the first settlers chose some hill readily defensible, and having fortified the summit as the first space to be occupied, they proceeded to build a taphos, or temple for the divinity. Such was the origin of Athens. The inclosed city was called Cecropia, from Cecrops, it is said, who first founded the state, and his was the first place of worship for the original inhabitants. Others interpret Acropolis to mean "Height of the City," which, in this instance, was accessible only on the western side, through the Propylæa, and was crowned by that shrine of Truth and Wisdom, the Parthenon. Religious instincts have ever sought the vast solitudes of untainted nature, or the open heights of the mighty temple of the great God, whereon the pure spirit of love reigns and smiles over all. Pilgrimages were made to the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, from the days of Abraham; and the nations surrounding the divinely favored tribes conspired to attach the idea of veneration to rivers and fountains, and were accustomed not only to dedicate trees and groves to their deities, but even to sacrifice on high mountains; customs which were practiced by the Jews themselves, previous to the building of Solomon's temple. The beginning of wisdom was in the wilds of Asia, and it was there that the God of nature implanted grand ideas in the minds of shepherds, meditating on those antique eminences, teaching them to wonder and adore. As the loftiest mountains are surmounted with the most unsullied snow, so the purest sentiments crowned their elevated souls, and forever rendered them the chief source of fertilizing streams to all lands, through every region of thought.