The Southern Review Volume . 13 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873-01-01 edition. Excerpt: ...Christ, after he was crucified, fulfilled the symbol of the tree in Paradise, and of all other things which were to happen afterward to the righteous. For Moses was sent with a rod, to redeem his people; with this rod he divided the sea, brought water out of the rock, and with a piece of wood made the bitter water sweet. Jacob, also, with sticks, made his uncle Laban's sheep bring forth such lambs as were to be his own again, ' etc. So he goes on, applying the Cross of Christ to all the sticks and pieces of wood in the Old Testament, to give them a new and wonderful meaning; and, pursuing the same mode of pious reflection in another place, he says, ' that when the Son of Man, called Jesus, led the people on to battle, Moses employed himself in prayer, with his hands stretched out in the form of a cross; that, so long as he continued in that posture, Amalek was beaten; but when he remitted anything of it his own people suffered; and that all this was owing to the power of the cross; for the people did not conquer because Moses prayed, but because, while the name of Jesus was at the head of the battle, Moses was exhibiting the figure of the crots? Here everything is made to depend, not upon the prayer of Moses, but upon the position and figure. Behold, then, the origin of the ritualistic worship of the present day, which, in the words of Sidney Smith, is so largely enriched with the sublime efficacy of ' postures and impostures, flexions and genuflexions, bowings to the east and curtseyings to the west, and all that sort of tomfoolery.'1 He might also have added, ' the crossing of the floor with the feet, and the crossing of the breast with the hands, ' as well as various other signs of the Cross, which form so conspicuous a feature in...