James Wood

“ Philosophy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the divinity of the inmost shrine; her dictates descend among men, but she herself descends not; whoso would behold her must climb with long and laborious effort ”

“ As the light had no portion in the darkness, and the darkness no portion in the light, the religion arose which pervades that of the Bible, which requires the children of the former to separate from those of the latter. ”

“ During their prosperity their manufactures, purple dye, glass ware, and metal implements were in demand everywhere; they were the traders of the world, their nautical skill and geographical position making their markets the centres of exchange between East and West; their ships sailed every sea, and carried the merchandise of every country, and their colonists settled all over the Mediterranean, Ægean, and Euxine, and even beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in Africa, in Britain, and the countries on the Baltic. ”

“ In the N. the oak abounds, in the centre the chestnut, in the S. cork-trees and palms. Agriculture, carried on with primitive implements, is the chief industry. Indian corn, wheat, and in the S. rice, are extensively grown; the vine yields the most valuable crops, but in the N. it is giving place to tobacco. There are a few textile factories. The largest export is wine; the others, cork, copper ore, and onions, which are sent to Great Britain, Brazil, and France. The principal imports, iron, textiles, and grain. The capital is Lisbon, on the Tagus, one of the finest towns in the world. ”

“ He was the principal figure in the history of the early Christian Church, but was soon eclipsed by the overpowering presence and zeal of Paul. Tradition, indeed, has something to tell of him, but from it little of trustworthy can be gathered except that he finished his career by martyrdom in the city of Rome. This Apostle is represented in Christian art as an old man, bald-headed, with a flowing beard, dressed in a white mantle, and holding a scroll in his hand, his attributes being the keys, and a sword in symbol of his martyrdom. ”

“ Oporto, the chief manufacturing centre, and second city for commerce, is at the mouth of the Douro. Braga was once the capital. Coimbra, on the Mondego, is the rainiest place in Europe. There are good roads between the chief towns, 1200 m. of railway and 3000 m. of telegraph. The people are a mixed race, showing traces of Arab, Berber, and Negro blood, with a predominance of northern strains. They are courteous and gentle; the peasantry hard-working and thrifty. Roman Catholic is the national faith, but they are tolerant of other religions. The language is closely akin to Spanish. ”

“ South of the river is the Luxembourg, where the Senate meets, and on the Ile de la Cité stands the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie, one of the oldest Paris prisons. St.-Germain-des-Prés is the most ancient church, but the most important is the cathedral of Notre Dame, 12th century, which might tell the whole history of France could it speak. Saint-Chapelle is said to be the finest Gothic masterpiece extant. The Pantheon, originally meant for a church, is the burial-place of the great men of the country, where lie the remains of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Carnot. ”

“ Education is backward. The Government is a limited monarchy, there being two houses of Parliament—Peers and Deputies. The Azores and Madeira are part of the kingdom; there are colonies in Africa and Asia, in which slavery was abolished only in 1878. The 14th and 15th centuries saw the zenith of Portugal's fortunes. At that time, in strict alliance with England, she raised herself by her enterprise to the foremost maritime and commercial power of Europe; her navigators founded Brazil, and colonised India. ”

“ Pre-Raphaelitism, a movement headed by Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Millais, of revolt against the style of art in vogue, traceable all the way back to Raphael, and of a bold return to the study of nature itself, agreeably to the advice of Ruskin, that “they should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought than how best to penetrate her meaning: rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing” ”

“ Salt, amber, and precious stones are found on the Baltic shores; textiles, metal wares, and beer are the main industries; Berlin and Elberfeld are the two chief manufacturing centres on the Continent; the great navigable rivers, Niemen, Vistula, Oder, Elbe, Weser, Rhine, and their tributaries and canals, excellent railways, and her central European position all favour Prussia's commerce, while her coast-line, harbours, and growing mercantile fleet put her in communication with the markets of the world; seven-eighths of the people are Germans ”

“ There is little timber, cow-dung is common fuel; the soil is barren, but under irrigation there are fertile stretches; wheat, indigo, sugar, cotton, tobacco, opium, and tea are largely grown; cotton, silk, lace, iron, and leather are manufactured; indigo, grain, cotton, and manufactured products are exported in exchange for raw material, dyes, horses, and timber. The population is mixed, Sikhs, Jats, and Rajputs predominate; more than a half are Mohammedan, and more than a third Hindu. Lahore is the capital, but Delhi and Amritsar are larger towns. Several railways run through the province. ”

“ The prevailing industry is agriculture; the crops are grain, potatoes, and hops; there are some manufactures of machinery and cloth. Originally part of Poland, half the population are Poles; except the Jews, most of the people are Catholics. The capital is Posen (70) , on the Warthe, by rail 185 m. E. of Berlin. It is a pleasant town, with a cathedral, museum, and library, manufactures of manure and agricultural implements, breweries and distilleries. It is now a fortress of the first rank. ”

“ The Cumberland Valley in the W. is one of the best farming lands in New England. The Alleghany River in the W. and the two branches of the Susquehanna in the centre water the State. Pennsylvania is the greatest mining State in the Union; its iron-mines and petroleum-wells supply half the iron and most of the oil used in the country; its bituminous coal-beds in the W. are extremely rich, and the anthracite deposits of the E. are unrivalled; in manufactures, too, it ranks second among the States; these are very varied, the most valuable being iron, steel, and shipbuilding. ”

“ Protestantism, the name given to a movement headed by Luther in the 16th century, in protestation of the supremacy in spiritual things claimed by the Church of Rome, and made on the ground of the authority of conscience enlightened by the Word of God, conceived of as the ultimate revelation of God to man. ”

“ Pekin has railway communication with Hankow, and is connected with other cities and with Russia by telegraph. Its trade and industry are inconsiderable. It is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was Kubla Khan's capital, and has been the metropolis of the empire since 1421.
Pelagius, a celebrated heresiarch of the 5th century, born in Britain or Brittany; denied original sin and the orthodox doctrine of divine grace as the originating and sustaining power in redemption, a heresy for which he suffered banishment from Rome in 418 at the hands of the Church. ”

“ Piedmont, a district of Italy, formerly a principality, ruled by the house of Savoy, surrounded by the Alps, the Apennines, and the river Ticino; occupies the W. end of the great fertile valley of the Po, a hilly region rich in vines and mulberries, and a mountainous tract with forests and grazing land intersected by lovely valleys, which send streams down into the Po; the people are industrious; textile manufactures are extensive, and agriculture is skilful; Turin, the largest town, was the capital of Italy 1859-1865 ”

“ Ptolemaic System, the highly complex system of astronomy ascribed to Claudius Ptolemy, which assumed that the earth was the centre of a sphere which carried the heavenly bodies along in its daily revolution, accounted for the revolutions of the sun and moon by supposing they moved in eccentric circles round the earth, and regarded the planets as moving in epicycles round a point which itself revolved in an eccentric circle round the earth like the sun and moon. ”

“ The fisheries are the best on the Gulf, but are not developed. Manufactures are inconsiderable. Discovered by the Cabots, it was settled by the French in 1715, and ceded to Great Britain in 1763. Constituted a province in 1768, the name was changed from St. John to Prince Edward in 1799. Since 1875 the local government have bought out most of the great proprietors, and resold the land to occupying owners. Education is free. There are normal schools and two colleges. Half the people are Roman Catholics. A railway traverses the island, and there is daily steam communication with the mainland. ”

“ The epoch thus created was the emancipation of the human being from dependent childhood to self-dependent manhood, and it constituted the first epoch in the self-conscious history, which is the history proper, of the human race. The idea the Persians formed of the principle of good came far short of the reality indeed, but they first saw that it was of purely illuminating quality and universal, and that the destiny of man was to relate himself to it, to know, worship, and obey it. ”

“ Pantheon, a temple in Rome, first erected by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, circular in form, 150 ft. in height, with niches all round for statues of the gods, to whom in general it was dedicated; it is now a church, and affords sepulture to illustrious men. Also a building in Paris, originally intended to be a church in honour of the patron saint of Paris, but at the time of the Revolution converted into a receptacle for the ashes of the illustrious dead, Mirabeau being its first occupant, and bearing this inscription, Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissant ”

“ The modern devil is invested with some of his attributes, such as cloven hoofs, &c.
Panama (15) , a free port in the State of Colombia, on the Pacific coast of the isthmus of the same name, and an oppressively hot and humid place, is the terminus of the Panama railroad and the seat of a great transit trade. It has a Spanish cathedral. The population, of Indian and negro descent chiefly, is only half what it was when the canal works were in full operation. ”

“ She thereupon gave way to a long wail of lamentation and set off a-wandering over the wide world in search of her lost love, till she came to the palace of Venus, her arch-enemy, who seized on her person and made her her slave, subjecting her to a series of services, all of which she accomplished to the letter, so that Venus was obliged to relent and consent that, in the presence of all the gods of Olympus, Cupid and she should be united in immortal wedlock. It is the story of the trials of the soul to achieve immortality. See “Stories from the Greek Mythology,” by the Editor. ”

“ Prague (310) , capital of Bohemia, on the Moldau, 217 m. by rail NW. of Vienna, is a picturesque city with over 70 towers, a great royal palace, unfinished cathedral, an old town-hall, a picture-gallery, observatory, botanical garden, and museums; the University, partly German and partly Czech, has 300 teachers, 4000 students, and a magnificent library; the centre of an important transit trade, Prague is the chief commercial city of Bohemia; has manufactures of machinery, chemicals, leather, and textile goods; four-fifths of the population are Czechs ”

“ The climate is moist and warm, but fairly healthy; the soil is very fertile. Rice, maize, sugar, cotton, coffee, and tobacco are cultivated; the forests yield dye-woods, hard timber, and medicinal herbs, and the mines coal and iron, copper, gold, and lead. The chief exports are sugar, hemp, and tobacco. The aboriginal Negritoes are now few; half-castes are numerous; the population is chiefly Malayan, Roman Catholic at least nominally in religion, and speaking the Tagal or the Visayan language. Discovered by Magellan in 1521, who was killed on the island of Mactan ”

“ Its innumerable islands are the chief feature of the Pacific Ocean. The continental islands include the Aleutian, Kurile, Japan, and Philippine Islands, and the archipelago between the Malay Peninsula and Australia; the Oceanic Islands include countless groups, volcanic and coral, chiefly in the southern hemisphere, between the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand. Commerce on the Pacific Ocean is only beginning, but will increase vastly with the extension of the United States westward, the colonisation of Australia, and the opening of Chinese and Japanese ports. ”

“ The University Schools in the Quartier Latin attract the youth of all France; the chief are the Schools of Medicine and Law, the Scotch College, the College of France, and the Sorbonne, the seat of the faculties of letters, science, and Protestant theology. Triumphal arches are prominent in the city. There are many museums and charitable institutions; the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the Rue Richelieu, rivals the British Museum in numbers of books and manuscripts. The Palace of Industry and the Eiffel Tower commemorate the exhibitions of 1854 and 1889 respectively. ”

“ Sugar, coffee, and rice are the principal crops; tobacco and tropical fruits are grown; cattle and horses are reared. Textile goods, hardware, and provisions are imported; the exports are sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cattle. The capital is St. John's (24) , Mayaguez (27) , and Ponce (40) , the other towns. The island was discovered by Columbus, who called it Hispaniola, in 1493. Colonised by Spain in 1510, it attempted unsuccessfully to gain independence in 1820-23. The abolition of slavery in 1873, and the growth of population, marked the remainder of its history as a Spanish colony. ”

“ In 1241 the Mongols devastated the country, and thereafter colonies of Germans and Jewish refugees settled among the Slav population. The first Diet met in 1331, and Casimir the Great, 1333-1370, raised the country to a high level of prosperity, fostering the commerce of Danzig and Cracow. The dynasty of the Jagellons united Lithuania to Poland, ended two centuries' contest with the Teutonic knights, and yielded to the nobles such privileges as turned the kingdom into an oligarchy and elective monarchy. At the time of the Reformation Poland was the leading power in Eastern Europe. ”