The erections of stone noticed in Sacred Writ, are

The Single Stone, or Pillar

The Altar of un-hewn Stone

Groups of Pillars, twelve in number, and

The circular conical Heap of Stones;

British Structures analogous to these, are

The Single Stone, or Pillar

The Cromlech, or Altar

Groups of Pillars, indefinite as to number, and

The Cairn, or circular heap of loose stones

Other erections of Stone, having nothing analogous to them in Sacred Writ, are The Toalmen, or Holed Stone

The Logan, or Rocking Stone :

Of the patriarchal erections of un-hewn stone, the Altar is the most ancient—the Pillar, the most simple-and, on that account, probably the most

numerous.

The religious, and expressively figurative act of sacrificing, is of still more remote antiquity than the Altar itself, if we date the latter from the time that it is first noticed in the sacred writings, for as early as the first-born sons of Adam we find this practice existing, and the offerings of Cain and Abel are recorded in connexion with circumstances of the highest importance to the Christian religion; but these are not within the limits of our present researches.

The first Altar on record is that which Noah erected immediately after the exit of himself and family from the Ark; thus the first building in the post

diluvian world was an Altar, and the first public act was a solemn thanksgiving : But, to return to the more immediate object of this Lecture, let us now consider the patriarchal and the British Pillar.

In Sacred Writ the Pillars are denominated STONES OF MEMORIAL, and

in this character they were applied in various ways.

I.

In commemoration of some eminent display of Divine Goodness, II. As the memorial of some civil compact,

III. As the perpetual witness of a solemn covenant with God,

IV. As sepulchral monuments,

V. To perpetuate the remembrance of certain persons, and

VI. Lastly, they were perverted to the purposes of an absurd and impious idolatry, by various nations of Palestine.

The first account that we have of the Pillar in the patriarchal history is of that which Jacob set up, and called Bethel; this was possibly intended as a substitute for the Altar, which, under the circumstances of a hasty journey, he had not time to construct it is highly probable that this Pillar was not only the first on record, but really the first erection of the kind; for the Phenicians gave the name of Betoel to the stone Pillars which they frequently set up and consecrated by pouring oil on them, after the example of Jacob; and the Grecians, who in time became the most exquisite sculptors in the world, had for many centuries no other representatives of their gods than these rude Pillars, to which they gave the more sonorous epithet of Batuloi, a name evidently derived from the Betoel of the Phenicians, and the Bethel of the Patriarch. The scriptural history of this first Pillar is too interesting to pass silently over; like every other narrative in the

sacred volume it is marked by an elegant simplicity. When on his journey, or rather flight, from Beersheba to Haram, the youthful and solitary fugitive lighted on a certain place where he determined to tarry all night, for the sun was gone down; and he took of the stones of that place and put them for his pillow, and lay down there to sleep; and, in a dream, the God of his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, condescended to appear to him, and administer to him that consolation and encouragement which he must have been much in need of; I am, said he, the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed; and behold, I am with thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of; and Jacob awoke with his mind deeply impressed with awful reverence and pious gratitude in the recollection of this remarkable vision; and he rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a Pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it; and he called the name of that place Bethel, that is, the house of God. The twelve stones erected by Joshua, after the miraculous passage of Jordan, furnish another instance of this application of the Stone Pillar. As the memorial of a civil compact we must again recur to the history of Jacob for an instance; Jacob having secretly and abruptly left the house of Laban, his father-in-law, Laban pursued him, and having overtaken him, rebuked him for his sudden and clandestine departure; but the father and son soon adjusted their difference, and renewed their sentiments of filial and paternal love towards each other; on this, Laban expresses a wish that some memorial of this their reconciliation might be established, and Jacob took a stone, and he set it up for a Pillar, and he said unto his brethren, 'gather stones', and they took stones, and made a

heap, and Laban called the heap Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Gal-eed, a a name which implies that this heap was a circular mound of stones, similar to the Cairn, so frequent in many parts of England and the Isles of Scotland; and Laban said unto Jacob, "behold this heap of stones, and behold this pillar, which I have cast up betwixt thee and me; this heap be WITNESS, and this Pillar be WITNESS, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar to me for harm. See the account, Gen. xxxi.

As an instance of the Pillar of Stone set up in commemoration of a solemn covenant with the Almighty, we may recur to the account of that which Joshua erected in Shechem, under the Oak, near the sanctuary of God; this we are informed was a great stone.-See Joshua xxiv. The rude stone pitched as a sepulchral memorial is instanced in the Pillar of Rachel's grave.-Gen xxxv. 20. At Brighton are two examples of the British sepulchral Pillar. See Drawings 4 and 5.

To preserve the memory of individuals, mention is made in scripture of the Stone of Abel-the Stone of Bohun-and of the Pillar of Absalom; for Absalom had reared up to himself a Pillar, which is in the king's dale, for, said he, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance; and he called the Pillar after his own name, and it is called to this day Absalom's place. 2. Samuel xviii, 18.

Having thus circumstantially traced the scriptural history of these Stones of Memorial, we must proceed in exemplifying their analogies in this counrty, as well as in some others: in doing this, it will be necessary to have recourse to the Poems of Ossian; I am well aware that this work is of disputed authority, I have, however, no doubt in my own mind, that a very large portion of the Materials of which it is composed is genuine; it consists of poems, or parts of

poems, which

the Highlanders were in the habit of reciting, in order to beguile the lingering hours of a winter's night, and gratify their national feeling with the theme that was most congenial to it, "the Praises of the mighty Dead." If these Poems are genuine, in toto, they furnish an invaluable illustration of many of the customs of the North British Celts; if only partially so, it became highly incumbent on the fabricator of such a work, to make himself accurately and minutely versed in the rites, customs, and peculiarities of the Celtic tribes; his credit was at stake, and he must have been well aware of the ordeal through which his performance was inevitably to pass; under these impressions, I refer to the Poems of Ossian with perfect reliance on their accuracy as to the superstitious rites and customs of Ancient Britain.

In this country, and at this remote period, the application of the rude Pillar as a Stone of Memorial is more obvious in its sepulchral capacity than in any other; in South Britain these occur more rarely than in the North, probably owing to the sordid avarice and barbarous ignorance that has caused many a venerable remnant of British antiquity to be broken in pieces for the sake of the stone.

The following extracts are illustrative of the sepulchral Stone of Memorial;

"I took a Stone" says the warrior, "from the Stream, amidst the songs of Bards; beneath I placed, at intervals, three bosses from the shields of foes, as rose or fell the sound of Ullin's nightly song"

'We rais'd the mould about the stone and bade it speak to other years-saying;"

"Oozy daughter of the streams, that now art rear'd on high, speak to the feeble, O Stone! after Selma's race hath fail'd. "