he link of our history was severed. Hyde de
Religione Vet. Persarum, c. iv. p. 121, supposes Solomon to have traded
with the Peruvians; and the analogies between the Pyramids in Mexico and
Egypt confirm the opinion, and sanction the belief that the ancients had
a more extended knowledge of, and a greater traffic over, the earth than
history records. In the most early ages, worship was paid to stone
idols; and the Pagan introduction of statues into temples was of a
recenter date. The ancient Etruscans, as well as the ancient Egyptians,
revered the obeliscal stone, (the reason why to the obeliscal stone is
given by Payne Knight, in his extraordinary work;) nor was it, according
to Plutarch, till 170 years after the founding of the city that the
Romans had statues in their temples, their deities being considered
invisible. Many stone pillars exist in this country, especially in
Cornwall; and it is a fair inference that the Phoenician imported his
religious rites in return for his metallic exports--since we find
mention made of stone pillars in Genesis, xxviii. v. 20; Deuteronomy,
xxvii. v. 4.; Joshua, xxiv.; 2 Samuel, xx. v. 8.; Judges, ix. v. 6., &c.
&c. Many are the conjectures as to what purport these stones were used:
sometimes they were sepulchral, as Jacob's pillar over Rachel, Gen.
xxxv. 20. Ilus, son of Dardanus, king of Troy, was buried in the plain
before that city beneath a column, Iliad, xi. 317. Sometimes they were
erected as trophies, as the one set up by Samuel between Mizpeh and
Shen, in commemoration of the defeat of the Philistines; one was also
erected at Murray, in Scotland, as a monument of the fight between
Malcolm, son of Keneth, and Sueno the Dane. We also find them as
witnesses to covenants, like that of Jacob and Laban, which, though
originally an emblem of a civil pact, became afterwards the place of
worship of the whole twelve tribes of Israel. All these relics, to say
nothing of the cromlechs in Malabar, bear a silent and solemn testimony
of some by-gone people, whose religious and civil customs had extended
wide over the earth. Their monuments remain, but their history has
perished, and the dust of their bodies has been scattered in the wind.
The Druids availed themselves of those places most likely to give an
effect to their vaticinations; and not only obtained, but supported by
terror the influence they held over the superstitious feelings of our
earliest forefathers. Where nature presented a