But as you cannot imagine that O’Connor had gone over to Nubia, in the twelfth century of the Christian era, to get his murdered hostage deified in a pagan temple, built, perhaps, at the very lowest, three thousand years before his time, so neither can you impose upon us, that the Budhists stole a march upon our Christian supineness, and, while our different sects were fighting for who should have most, and proclaiming “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ,”[390] imprinted their complexity upon our boasted simplicity, and then suddenly again vanished without having been once seen, felt, heard, discovered, or understood!!!
What entanglements will not people plunge themselves into when supporting a bad cause! And how easy is the road which rectitude follows!
The Hindoo Puranas corroborate, to an iota, this our Knockmoy crucifixion.[391] Sulivahana is the name which they give to the deity there represented. The meaning of the word is tree-born, or, who suffered death upon a tree. He was otherwise called Dhanandhara, that is, the sacred almoner. And his fame, say the Puranas, reached even to the Sacred Island, in the sea of milk, that is, of Doghda, which signifies milk, and which was the title of the tutelar goddess of Ireland.[392]
Avaunt, then, evermore, to the humbug of back-reckoning, and the charge of imposture upon the Brahmins! I flatter myself, I have laid an extinguisher, for ever, upon that pretext.
As I have before presumed to offer a suggestion to the translators of oriental manuscripts, I shall take the additional liberty of intimating, which I do with profound submission and respect, to the decipherers of all hieroglyphics, whether in Ireland or in the East, that those arrow-headed characters, to be met with at Persepolis, and resembling in their formation our Irish Oghams, bear reference, both of them, to this mysterious crucifixion! And that if Mr. Champollion, and other gentlemen interested in the prosecution of those useful points, will attend to this my advice, they will find it a more certain key to the attainment of their desired object, than all the labour and outlay of centuries heretofore!
“Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The heart that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.”—Wordsworth.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The regal figures, which I promised, as belonging to the Nubian temple, and corresponding to the Knockmoy frescoes, are the following:—