While descending the rugged mount, the scenes you have just left behind
may lead to a train of thought somewhat similar to the following. What a
great change has taken place in this Island since the Roman Eagle
fluttered in the breeze, and the conquering legions rent the heavens with
shouts of victory. When the historic lamp disclosed this land, it
presented a race of rude barbarians,
Wild as the untaught Indian brood.
Superstition then triumphed over the minds of the masses. In yon valley
was the sequestered grove devoted to obscure and horrid mysteries—altars
were reared, on which the innocent, as well as the guilty, were doomed to
bleed—the Druid priests performed the horrid murders, and pretended that
they could, by such means, foretel future events, blasphemously asserting
that the attitude in which the victim fell, the writhing agonies of
expiring life, the manner in which the blood flowed, or the convulsions
of the wounds opened, or closed, were indications of futurity—they
conducted gloomy processions, with victims, bound with cords, for
slaughter and sacrifice, filling the air with shrieks of agony and
screams of horror—gross idolatry, savage manners, bloody rites, funeral
pile, echoing whoop—all, all were there!
Wrapped in deep sleep, the ancient Britons lay,
Hugged their vile chains, and dream’d their age away.
Such was Wales, and such was Britain too, before the light of the
Christian Religion shone on her coasts. That heaven-born system, with
its train of imperishable blessings, took its stand amid these wild
regions, and like yon sun in the heavens, diffused her light, extended
her influence, and multiplied her bloodless conquests. She has
organized, humanized, civilized, moralized, and, in many instances,
evangelized the inhabitants. Christianity has expelled idolatry,
restored natural affection, and has conferred, and is conferring,
numerous, most substantial, and positive blessings. And while she has,
on the one hand, discouraged and eradicated those vices which were the
harbingers of a nation’s ruin, she has, on the other, implanted those
principles on which the welfare of nations depend. It is true she has
prepared weapons, but they are not carnal; enlisted soldiers, but their
fight is without “confused noise of warriors, and garments rolled in
blood;” she has erected a standard, but it is the Cross; unfurled a
banner, but its emblem is the dove—the bond of brotherhood; and when
sovereigns, senators, and legislators, are properly influenced by the
pacific principles of the Gospel, war will be known no more; the sun will
no more rise upon an embattled plain, nor set upon a field of blood.
Then the labourer will
Drive his yoked oxen, and with careless steps
Lean o’er the share, and carol as he guides
The obliterating furrow o’er their graves.
Contrasting the present with the past, we feel that other times now bless
our land, and that while peace and joy bound over the mountain tops, we
can with peculiar feelings give utterance to the language of the poet:—
Where once the Roman marshall’d his bold host,
Bristling with swords and spears the rocky heights,
The shepherd leads his flock, and the young lambs
In sporting gambols tread the flowery turf.