DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0073
63
accomplishment that could render them attractive, and ensure suc-
cess in the profession ; which they exercised at once for the plea-
sure and profit of the priesthood. They were never allowed to
desert the temple ; and the offspring of their promiscuous embraces
were, if males, consecrated to the service of the deity in the cere-
monies of his worship ; and, if females, educated in the profession
of their mothers.1
86. Night being the appropriate season for these mysteries, and
being also supposed to have some genial and nutritive influence in
itself,1 was personified, as the source of all things, the passive pro-
ductive principle of the universe,3 which the iEgyplians called by a
name, that signified Night.4' Hesiod says, that the nights belong to
the blessed gods ; it being then that dreams descend from Heaven
to forewarn and instruct men.s Hence night is called eupgon;,
good, or benevolent, by the ancient poets ; and to perform any un-
seemly act or gesture in the face of night, as well as in the face of
' Maurice Antiq. Ind. vol. i. pt. 1. p. 341.
A devout Mohammedan, who in theixth. century travelled through India,
solemnly thanks the Almighty that he and his nation were delivered from
the errors of infidelity, and unstained by the horrible enormities of so cri-
minal a system of superstition.
The devout Bramin might, perhaps, have offered up more acceptable
thanks, that he and his nation were free from the errors of a sanguinary
fanaticism, and unstained by the more horrible enormities of massacre, pil-
lage, and persecution; which had been consecrated by the religion of Mo-
hammed; and which every where attended the progress of his followers,
spreading slavery, misery, darkness, and desolation, over the finest regions of
the earth;1 of which the then happy Indians soon after felt the dire effects :
—effects, which, whether considered as moral, religious, or political evils,
arc of a magnitude and atrocity, which make all the licentious abuses of
luxury, veiled by hypocrisy, appear trifling indeed !
*Diodor. Sic. 1. i. c. vii.. , , ;
Orph. Hymn. ii. 2.
r.n ,nirn ii filial mflBsl .■t'oo^'i 1.1 mius r.«|fi/i
4 A0up or Adup, called Athorh still in the Coptic. Jablonski Panth. Mgypt.
lib. i. c. 1. s. 7.
5 Manapuv toi WKTti taatv. Hesiod. Epy, 730.
accomplishment that could render them attractive, and ensure suc-
cess in the profession ; which they exercised at once for the plea-
sure and profit of the priesthood. They were never allowed to
desert the temple ; and the offspring of their promiscuous embraces
were, if males, consecrated to the service of the deity in the cere-
monies of his worship ; and, if females, educated in the profession
of their mothers.1
86. Night being the appropriate season for these mysteries, and
being also supposed to have some genial and nutritive influence in
itself,1 was personified, as the source of all things, the passive pro-
ductive principle of the universe,3 which the iEgyplians called by a
name, that signified Night.4' Hesiod says, that the nights belong to
the blessed gods ; it being then that dreams descend from Heaven
to forewarn and instruct men.s Hence night is called eupgon;,
good, or benevolent, by the ancient poets ; and to perform any un-
seemly act or gesture in the face of night, as well as in the face of
' Maurice Antiq. Ind. vol. i. pt. 1. p. 341.
A devout Mohammedan, who in theixth. century travelled through India,
solemnly thanks the Almighty that he and his nation were delivered from
the errors of infidelity, and unstained by the horrible enormities of so cri-
minal a system of superstition.
The devout Bramin might, perhaps, have offered up more acceptable
thanks, that he and his nation were free from the errors of a sanguinary
fanaticism, and unstained by the more horrible enormities of massacre, pil-
lage, and persecution; which had been consecrated by the religion of Mo-
hammed; and which every where attended the progress of his followers,
spreading slavery, misery, darkness, and desolation, over the finest regions of
the earth;1 of which the then happy Indians soon after felt the dire effects :
—effects, which, whether considered as moral, religious, or political evils,
arc of a magnitude and atrocity, which make all the licentious abuses of
luxury, veiled by hypocrisy, appear trifling indeed !
*Diodor. Sic. 1. i. c. vii.. , , ;
Orph. Hymn. ii. 2.
r.n ,nirn ii filial mflBsl .■t'oo^'i 1.1 mius r.«|fi/i
4 A0up or Adup, called Athorh still in the Coptic. Jablonski Panth. Mgypt.
lib. i. c. 1. s. 7.
5 Manapuv toi WKTti taatv. Hesiod. Epy, 730.