DESCRIBED.

The patriarchal religion in Egypt, under the gospel dispensation, says, "In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt; and a pillar, at the border thereof, to Jehovah." This is a reference to the biblical prophecy in Isaiah 19:19. This is expressly making use of the terms of a patriarchal temple, with a view to that religion being restored, meaning the Christian faith.

These monuments of the piety of the patriarchs in the eastern parts of the world were, in time, desecrated for idolatrous purposes and at length destroyed, even by the people of Israel, for that reason. Temples square in form and covered at the top were introduced during the Mosaic dispensation The "Mosaic dispensation" refers to the period when the Laws of Moses governed religious life, specifically the era of the Tabernacle and the Temple of Solomon. in direct opposition to that idolatry. But before then, that first method passed all over the western world and to Britain, where we see them to this day. By the way, we trace some footsteps of them, but there is always a fable annexed; as is generally the case today in our Druid temples at home.

Thus, Pausanias in his Description of Greece: Corinth informs us that near the river Chemarus is a septum or circle of stones. He says they have a report there that this is the place from which Pluto carried away Proserpine. By such a story, we must understand that the mysteries In antiquity, "mysteries" referred to secret religious rituals or initiations. were celebrated there. Pausanias writes that the Thracians used to build their temples round and open at the top, in Boeotia. He speaks of such at Haliartus by the name of a Temple original: Ναος (Naos), equivalent to the Hebrew Beth (house), which name Jacob gave to his temple. He speaks of several altars dedicated to Pluto, set in the middle of areas fenced in with stones, and they are called Hermionian. He tells us too that among the Orchomenians is a most ancient temple of the Graces, but they worship them in the form of stones. From the number three, we may easily guess this was a kistvaen original: "Kist vaen"; a Welsh term for a stone chest or dolmen, often used as a tomb or sanctuary., as our old Britons call it, or Kebla A term used by the author to denote a focal point or sanctuary within a temple, similar to the Qibla in Islamic prayer direction., like that in our great temple of Abury and elsewhere. Indeed, the stones of these sanctuaries, in time, instead of being a direction in worship, became the object of worship, as Clement of Alexandria affirms.

That our Druids were so eminently celebrated for their use of groves shows them to have a more particular relation to Abraham, and to have derived the usage more immediately from him; a point I indicated to a good extent in the account of STONEHENGE. Hence, the name of Druid imports "priest of the groves"; and their green cathedrals, as we may call them, are celebrated by all ancient writers who speak of this people. We all know the awful and solemn pleasure that strikes one upon entering a grove; a kind of religious dread arises from the gloomy majesty of the place, which was very favorable to the purpose they intended. Servius, commenting upon Virgil's Aeneid, Book 3:

original: "Ante urbem in luco falsi Simoëntis ad undam"

observes that Virgil never mentions a grove without a note of religion. Again, in Aeneid, Book 9, verse 4, Strabo says the poets call temples by the name of groves. And this is frequently done in the scriptures. But it is natural for our classic writers, when speaking of the Druids and their great attachment to religious rites (so different from what they were acquainted with), to insist much upon their groves. They overlooked our stone monuments, which they would scarcely dignify with the name of temples because they were not covered like their own. Yet if we were to conclude from this, as some do, that groves were the only temples of the Druids—and therefore that Stonehenge and the works we are now discussing were not theirs—we should err as much as if we asserted that Abraham only made use of groves, and not of the other temples erected on plains and open places.

Thus far I have provided a brief introduction to our discourse, showing the origin of temples among mankind; a necessary provision for...