Isis unveiled, Volume 2 (of 2), Theology

The balance of the edition of these reprints having been recently “sold off” in London, I am now enabled to offer them at the above greatly reduced prices, for a brief period only. Several of the authors being already out of print, the time is not far distant when it will be impossible to procure complete sets, and collectors will do well to secure them while they have the opportunity.

By Thomas Inman, M.D., author of “Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names,” etc. Second edition, revised and enlarged, with an Essay on Baal Worship, on “the Assyrian Sacred Grove,” and other allied symbols. By John Newton, M.R.C.S.E., etc. Profusely illustrated. 1 vol. cloth, $3.00.

This book contains in a nutshell the essence of Dr. Inman’s other publications, and for the reader of limited means is just what he requires. The subject of symbolism is as deep as human thought and as broad in its scope as humanity itself. The erudite thinker finds it not only worthy of his best energies, but capable of taxing them to the utmost. Many pens have been employed upon it, and it has never grown old. Dr. Inman’s views are somewhat peculiar; he has concentrated his attention to the ideas which he believes to underlie the symbolism of the most ancient periods, and can be traced through the autonomy of the Christian Church. He finds the relation which exists, and the antiquarian likewise, between Asshur and Jehovah, the Baal of Syria and the God whom Christians worship; and the mysteries of the Sacred Grove, of which the Old Testament says so much, are unfolded and made sensible to the common intellect. Scholars will welcome this volume, and the religious reader will peruse its pages with the profoundest interest. The symbols which characterize worship constitute a study which will never lose its interest, so long as learning and art have admirers.

Words change as well as men, sometimes from no longer meeting the new wants of the people, but oftener from the attraction of novelty which impels everybody to change. A dictionary of obsolete words, and terms becoming obsolete, is a valuable reminder of the treasures which we are parting with; not always wisely, for in them are comprised a wealth of expression, idiom, and even history, which the new words cannot acquire. Dr. Mackay has placed a host of such on record, with quotations to illustrate how they were read by the classical writers of the English language, not many centuries ago, and enables us to read those authors more understandingly. If he could induce us to recall some of them back to life, it would be a great boon to literature; but hard as it might have been for Cæsar to add a new word to his native Latin language, it would have been infinitely more difficult to resuscitate an obsolete one, however more expressive and desirable. Many of the terms embalmed in this treatise are not dead as yet: and others of them belong to that prolific department of our spoken language that does not get into dictionaries. But we all need to know them; and they really are more homogeneous to our people than their successors, the stilted foreign-born and alien English, that “the Best” is laboring to naturalize into our language. The old words, like old shoes and well-worn apparel, sit most comfortably.

Or, the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century. Containing a Translation of Professor Carl Neumann’s work on the subject, made under supervision of the Author; a letter by Colonel Barclay Kennon, late of the U. S. North Coast Pacific Survey, on the Possibility of an Easy Passage from China to California; and a Résumé of the Arguments of De Guigues, Klaproth, Gustave D’Eichthal, and Dr. Bretschneider on the Narrative of Hoei-Shin, with other Contributions and Comments, by Charles G. Leland, 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, $1.75.