Menteith

“ In point of birth, no exceptions can be made; in every other respect, her advantages are equal to those which you yourself possess—think, however, a moment. Sir Duncan is a fanatic—Presbyterian at least—in arms against the King; he is only with us in the quality of a prisoner, and we are, I fear, but at the commencement of a long civil war. Is this a time, think you, Menteith, for you to make proposals for his heiress? ”

“ Each valley, each sequestered glen, Mustered its little horde of men That met as torrents from the height In Highland dales their streams unite Still gathering, as they pour along, A voice more loud, a tide more strong, Till at the rendezvous they stood By hundreds prompt for blows and blood, Each trained to arms since life began, Owning no tie but to his clan, No oath but by his chieftain's hand, No law but Roderick Dhu's command. XXV. That summer morn had Roderick Dhu Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue, And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath, To view the frontiers of Menteith. ”

“ Both he and his son, Robin Oig—probably confused with each other—left a dubious name in Menteith, over which the father is said to have pushed his creaghs so far as to come to encounter with Macgregor of Balhaldie, the Sheriffmuir laird who by some was recognised as chief of the clan. For the like of them, such raids were honourable occupation: a Highland gentleman, who would scorn to be the thief of a single cow, might be proud of playing the robber on a drove of cattle, yet also with a good conscience he could act as policeman, for a consideration. ”

“ Mentu's long fingers bent as if he longed for a throat between them.
"The craven invented his giant to salve his valor," the priest said.
"It may be," the fan-bearer replied musingly, "but thy nephew, holy Father, is conspicuously tall and well-muscled. Likewise, he is a sculptor. Furthermore, the two slaves came home badly abused. Unas has some proof for his tale—"
"Kenkenes is the soul of fidelity," the high priest retorted warmly. "He has had unnumbered opportunities to betray the gods and he has ever been steadfast." ”

“ The goddess Maāt is carried by the arm at the shining of the goddess Neith in the city of Mentchat, and at the shining of the Eye when it is weighed. I am carried over by it and I know what it bringeth from the city of Kesi, [1] and I will neither declare it unto men nor tell it unto the gods. I have come, being the envoy of Rā, to stablish Maāt upon the arm at the shining of Neith in the city of Mentchat and to adjudge the eye to him that shall scrutinize it. I have come as a power through the knowledge of the Souls of Khemennu (Hermopolis) who love to know what ye love. ”

“ A similar exhibition of obstinacy Methuselah, Lamech and Noah saw in their day. Therefore there bursts from them this voice of despair: My Spirit, namely the Word of healing truth, shall no longer bear witness among men. For inasmuch as you refuse to embrace the Word—will not yield to healing truth—you shall perish.
These are the words of a heart filled with anxiety after the manner that the Scriptures say God is anxious; that is, the hearts of Noah, Lamech, Methuselah and other holy men who are filled with love toward all. Beholding this wickedness of men, they are troubled and pained. ”

“ The example of Matthias is apparently laid before you for your confusion, who was chosen into his place, not by his own proper will, but by the election of the holy apostles, or rather the judgment of Christ, whereat ye being blinded, do not perceive how far ye run astray from his merits, while ye fall wilfully and headlong into the manners and affection of Judas the traitor. It is therefore manifest that he who wittingly from his heart termeth you priests, is not himself a true and worthy Christian. ”

“ Those whose conversation in the world is truly holy, shall find their removal out of it truly happy. Enoch's translation was not only an evidence to faith of the reality of a future state, and of the possibility of the body's existing in glory in that state; but it was an encouragement to the hope of all that walk with God, that they shall be forever with him: signal piety shall be crowned with signal honours.
25. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: 26. ”

“ In no other way could his life shape itself than as it did, and he saw with perfect clearness what men must be, and on what terms they must live together when God and they were as Father and children to each other. What he thus knew he lived, as if no laws but those of the kingdom of heaven had any authority for him, and so he presented to the world that living embodiment of the true religion, which has been the main strength of Christianity. ”

“ After this it came about that, by the grace of the learned men who dutifully teach us Greek and Hebrew, I learned that this word is in Greek metanoia and is derived from meta and noun, i. e., post and mentem, [3] so that poenitentia or metanoia is a "coming to one's senses," and is a knowledge of one's own evil, gained after punishment has been accepted and error acknowledged; and this cannot possibly happen without a change in our heart and our love. All this answers so aptly to the theology of Paul, that nothing, at least in my judgment, can so aptly illustrate St. Paul. ”

“ But if people mean I have turned into a Pietist, one of those who folds his hands on his bosom and waits for God to accomplish all things for him, or one who, instead of struggling after perfection in his earthly calling, talks of a heavenly calling which is incompatible with mundane efforts, or one who cannot truly love any person or anything in this world—such a one I have not become, thank Heaven! ”

“ And when the word came, I arose.' Now," said Nathaniel, "thus spake Mattathias to me. But if he spake aright, then methinks Jesus hath a power to create faith in the heart as well as to heal the diseases of the body."
All that night I meditated upon the words of Nathaniel and upon the story of Mattathias: for that a prophet should cure diseases seemed possible, though wonderful; but that any one, yea, even though he were the Redeemer of Israel himself, should have power to create peace and faith, this indeed seemed a marvellous and almost an impossible thing. ”

“ And Enoch and his brethren prophesied unto the people about the calamities that should overtake them, that the world was to be destroyed by a flood; and there were provisions made for the continuance of the human family, and it was made known to Methuselah that his seed should be the medium through which should be perpetuated the human family upon the earth. And Methuselah was so very desirous to have this thing fulfilled that Noah, his grandson, who was the son of Lamech, was ordained by Methuselah when he was ten years old. ”

“ But perhaps his most original contribution will be found in the following paragraph:—
"By exerting his mental powers to the full, man comes to understand his own nature. When he understands his own nature, he understands God."
In all the above instances the term used for God is T'ien. Only in one single passage does Mencius use Shang Ti:—"Though a man be wicked, if he duly prepares himself by fasting and abstinence and purification by water, he may sacrifice to God." ”

“ I need the wisdom of God and his Spirit to be in my heart to enable me to speak to the edification of the people. Although I have been a public speaker for thirty-seven years, it is seldom that I rise before a congregation without feeling a child-like timidity; if I live to the age of Methuselah I do not know that I shall outgrow it. There are reasons for this which I understand. When I look upon the faces of intelligent beings I look upon the image of the God I serve. There are none but what have a certain portion of divinity within them ”

“ TEHUTI. Will it please the King to hear Menthu, the high-priest of Neith?
[THE PHARAOH makes a gesture of assent. MENTHU steps forward.]
PHARAOH. Thou, too, art in sorrow today, for thou losest thy daughter, Asenath.
MENTHU. The great goddess, Neith, will reward me tenfold.
PHARAOH [With a touch of contempt.] Well—! Thou and the others, have ye besought the gods? Have ye searched your books? Have ye prayed and offered sacrifice?
MENTHU. All these things have we done.
PHARAOH. My dreams, then? What is
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“ You say that the soul re-enters the body on the day of judgment. Well, suppose I take two Jews and cut off their heads, and put the head of A on the body of B, and vice versa. Does the soul of A go into the body of A or into the head of A, which is on the body of B? If it goes into the head, is it responsible for the sins of the body of B? [He reaches over and, slyly watching LUCIA out of the corner of his eye, pours out a goblet of the brandy which the doctors have left there, slowly sipping it with much lip-smacking as he goes on] Do you follow me? ”

“ I was, therefore, vexed by the importunity, with which a man so full of mind and heart, attacked me, as well as Mendelssohn and others, maintaining that every one must either become a Christian with him, a Christian of his sort, or else that one must bring him over to one's own way of thinking, and convince him of precisely that in which one had found peace. ”

“ Search where you will, near or far, in ancient or modern times, and you will never find a first-rate race or an enlightened age, in its moments of highest reflection, that ever gave more than a passing bow to optimism. Even Christian [Pg 15] ity, starting out as "glad tidings," has had to take on protective coloration to survive, and today its chief professors moan and blubber like Johann in Herod's rain-barrel. The sanctified are few and far between. The vast majority of us must suffer in hell, just as we suffer on earth. The divine grace, so omnipotent to save, is withheld from us. ”

“ The Germans, as a rule, hold the view that the great nature-worship came first, and that the sanctity of the tree and the river came to them from above, these objects being regarded as lesser living beings deserving to be worshipped as well as the greater ones. The English school let the sanctity of these objects come to them as it were from below; when man has come to believe in spirits, he concludes that they have spirits too, and worships the spirits he supposes to dwell in them. ”

“ It may be said that what we have described are the effects of religious inspiration generally, and may take place in connection with any faith. But the divine impulse communicated to mankind in Christianity differs from that of any other religion in two important respects. In the first place, the God who here enters into union with man possesses full reality and a character of the utmost energy. It is Jehovah with whom we have to do here, changed, indeed, but still the same; a God of real and irresistible power, on whom speculation has not laid its weakening hand. ”

“ Superstitious practices continue among a race long after a truth has been preached there with which they are entirely inconsistent. Stories are long told about the gods, quite out of keeping with their character in the theology of the new faith, pointing to a time when not so much was expected of a god. In Mr. Lang's Myth, Ritual, and Religion, the reader will find an admirable collection of material showing how the popular elements of an old religion survive in a new one in which they are quite out of place. ”

“ Many of these superstitions the various branches of the Semites long continued to hold;3 but the race superseded in the main this world of spirits by a set of gods, and the magic addressed to spirits by religious observances addressed to gods. The genius or jinn haunting the thicket, who had no regular worshippers, but was an object of fear to all, and had to be propitiated or controlled by mysterious arts, gave way to the god of a clan, who took up his residence there, and received the regular worship of his clansmen ”

“ God appears in the Human form, which, to the little boy, seems that of his father and leads him to his mother. Mnetha has become Enion, who loses her own children in her own element. The Father gives back to her those who are not advanced enough to leave her, for until the experience of the lower nature, or senses, is completely matured, the higher should not be permitted to separate, lest empty abstraction, and the solitude of the Spectre in Entuthon Benython and Udan Adan, be the result, and not the ultimate unity only to be reached through experience and brotherhood. ”

“ To those who agree in this conclusion the history of the religion of the world, full of errors and of grievous failures as it has been seen to be, cannot appear to have been a vain and purposeless excursion in a land of shadows. Not without a divine call, and not without divine guidance did man set out so early, and persevere so constantly in spite of all his disappointments, in the search for God. ”

“ We may agree with Müller that the "swallow-myth" is extremely archaic in character, as it is so common among the backward races. As to the precise amount, however, of, philosophic reflection and allegory which was present to the cosmogonic poet's mind when he used Metis as the name of the being who could become a fly, and so be swallowed by her husband, it is impossible to speak with confidence. Very probably the poet meant to read a moral and speculative meaning into a barbaric märchen surviving in religious tradition. ”

“ Karl nodded, and the two men broke into a roar of laughter, which effectually settled the question of Louis and the Christmas Tree; for Karl was too pleased with his victory to be unrelenting.
“Now there is a man,” said the doctor to himself as he drove home, “who believes with all his heart that the sun shines. He proved it, too. If I could meet a man who believed like that in the Bible! But there is nothing corresponding to that sunstroke test of his in theology; and Christians know it. ”