- Common Hopi sun symbol
- Devil
The Devil - A Semi-choir of Minoresses
An engraving from a manuscript of a semi-choir of minoresses, which is only a portion of a large church interior. - Good Samaritan
- Thoth
When the land was divided into separate estates or properties, Thoth, the Pillar or Landmark at the corner of the field, became an important god; and as the owner's name was carved upon it, he was the god of letters and of all learning. - Ahole
The mask of Ahole, who flogs the children during the Powamû celebration, has the same two lateral horns and representation of radiating feathers over the crown of the head, but instead of sagittaform marks on the forehead there is a colored band from ear to ear across the face. - Three Angels
Three Angels - Chem
Another great god was their narrow valley, the country in which they lived, clearly divided from the yellow desert by the black Nile-mud, y which it is covered and made fertile, and hence called Chemi, the Black Land, or when made into a person, Chem, or Ham. He was the father of their race, called in the Bible, one of the sons of Noah, and considered by themselves the god of increase, the Priapus of the Greeks. Chem has a cap with two tall feathers like that of Amun-Ra, so large that it was necessary to give him a metal support to hold it on the head. His right arm is raises and holds a whip, his left arm is hid under his dress, which is the tight garment of the Egyptian women. - Typhon
Typhon is a hippopotamus, usually walking on its hind legs, and with female breasts, sometimes with a sword in his hand, to show his wicked nature. He is th chief author of evil. - Neith
Having thus created for themselves a number of gods, their own feelings, and what they saw around them, would naturally lead them to create an equal number of goddesses. Of these Neith, the Heavens, was one. She is often drawn with wings stretched out as if covering the whole earth. At other times she is formed into an arch, with her feet and fingers on the ground, while her body forms the blue vault overhead and is spangled with stars. At other times she is simply a woman, with the hieroglyphical character for her name as the ornament on top of her head. - Anubis
Anubis has the head of a dog or a jackal, or is represented as the animal a jackal. He never takes a foremost place among the gods, but usually stands at the attendant or servant of Osiris. - Mando-Ra
In the Western half of the Delta, the Sun is worshipped as Mando-Ra. Like Amun-Ra, he wears the two tall feathers and the Sun on his head, but he differs from him in having a hawk's face. - Alan Middleton
Clerk in Orders is still the legal description of a clergyman; and men whose occupation is to use the pen are still called clerks, as lawyers’ clerks, merchants’ clerks, &c. Clerks were often employed in secular occupations; for example, Alan Middleton, who was employed by the convent of St. Alban’s to collect their rents, and who is represented in the picture from their “Catalogus Benefactorum” (Nero D. vii., British Museum), is tonsured, and therefore was a clerk. - St. Christopher, with the date 1423, from a cut in the possession of Earl Spencer
This cut is much better designed than the generality of those which we find in books typographically executed from 1462, the date of the Bamberg Fables, to 1493, when the often-cited Nuremberg Chronicle was printed. Amongst the many coarse cuts which “illustrate” the latter, and which are announced in the book itselfII.11 as having been “got up” under the superintendence of Michael Wolgemuth, Albert Durer’s master, and William Pleydenwurff, both “most skilful in the art of painting,” I cannot find a single subject which either for spirit or feeling can be compared to the St. Christopher. In fact, the figure of the saint, and that of the youthful Christ whom he bears on his shoulders, are, with the exception of the extremities, designed in such a style, that they would scarcely discredit Albert Durer himself. To the left of the engraving the artist has introduced, with a noble disregard of perspective what Bewick would have called a “bit of Nature.” In the foreground a figure is seen driving an ass loaded with 48a sack towards a water-mill; while by a steep path a figure, perhaps intended for the miller, is seen carrying a full sack from the back-door of the mill towards a cottage. To the right is seen a hermit—known by the bell over the entrance of his dwelling—holding a large lantern to direct St. Christopher as he crosses the stream. The two verses at the foot of the cut, Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris, Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris, may be translated as follows: Each day that thou the likeness of St. Christopher shalt see, That day no frightful form of death shall make an end of thee. - Kneph
Kneph, the Wind or Air, or Breath of our bodies, was supposed to be the god of Animal and Spiritual Life. He has the head and horns of a ram. - Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of the Sun
The image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense, and a third pair make blood-offerings by piercing their ears. - Jesus Christ
- Saint Bernard
When about twenty years of age he entered the monastery at Citeaux with five of his brothers. His genius might have secured ecclesiastical preferment, but he chose to dig ditches, plant fields and govern a monastery. He entered the cloister at Citeaux because the monks were few and poor, and when it became crowded because of his fame, and its rule became lax because of the crowds, he left the cloister to found a home of his own. The abbot selected twelve monks, following the number of apostles, and at their head placed young Bernard. He led the twelve to the valley of Wormwood, and there, in a cheerless forest, he established the monastery of Clairvaux, or Clear Valley. His rule was fiercely severe because he himself loved hardships and rough fare. "It in no way befits religion," he writes, "to seek remedies for the body, nor is it good for health either. You may now and then take some cheap herb,--such as poor men may,--and this is done sometimes. But to buy drugs, to hunt up doctors, to take doses, is unbecoming to religion and hostile to purity." His success in winning men to the monastic life was almost phenomenal. It was said that "mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, and companions their friends, lest they be persuaded by his eloquent message to enter the cloister." "He was avoided like a plague," says one. - Pthah
Pthah, the god of Fire, was more particularly the god of Memphis, as Amun-Ra of Thebes; and the kings in that city were said to the "Beloved by Pthah." His figure is bandages like a mummy and his head shaven like a priest. - Athor
Other goddesses were attributes or feelings, made into persons, such as Athor the goddess of ove and Beauty. She has cow's horns, and sometimes a cow's head. - Saint Dominic
Dominic de Guzman, 1170-1221 A.D. Half-way between Osma and Aranda in Old Castile, Spain, is a little village known as "the fortunate Calahorra." Here was the castle of the Guzmans, where Dominic was born. His family was of high `rank` and character, a noble house of warriors, statesmen and saints. If we accept the legends, his greatness was foreshadowed. Before his birth, his mother dreamed she saw her son under the figure of a black-and-white dog, with a torch in his mouth. "A true dream," says Milman, "for he will scent out heresy and apply the torch to the faggots;" but, as will be seen later, this observation does not rest on undisputed evidence. - Isis
Isis, or Isitis, the Earth, or rather the corn-bearing Land, the mother of all creation was another, and perhaps the chief favourite with the nation. She is known by the throne upon her head, because a throne form the first syllable of her name. - Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr was a native of Neapolis, in Samaria, and was born A.D. 103. Died in the year 139 Being commanded as usual to deny their faith, and sacrifice to the pagan idols, they absolutely refused to do eeither. On their refusal, they were condemned to be first scourged and then beheaded; which sentence was executed with all imagined severity. - Figures of Taourt
It was a peculiar feature of the Egyptian religion, that it contained distinctively evil and malignant gods. Set was not, originally, such a deity; but he became such in course of time, and was to the later Egyptians the very principle of evil—Evil personified. Another evil deity was Taour or Taourt, who is represented as a hippopotamus standing on its hind-legs, with the skin and tail of a crocodile dependent down its back, and a knife or a pair of shears in one hand. - Horus
Horus has a hawk's head, and wears the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, formed of a plate of gold over and around the mitre. sometimes he is a crowned hawk. - Adoratorio
This represents the “Adoratorio or Alta Casa, No. 3” of Palenque. This is nothing else than the temple of the god Huitzilopochtli and of his equal, Tlaloc. - Hapimou
Next was Hapimou, the Nile, whose waters were the chief source of their food, whose overflow marked the limits between the cultivated land and the desert; to him they owed nothing but grateful thanks. He is a figure of both sexes, having the beard of a man and the breastes of a child-bearing woman. He carries in his arms fruits and flowers and sometimes waterfowls. - Pilgrim on Horseback
Pilgrim on Horseback - A Present of Fish
The woodcut represents, probably, the cellarer of a Dominican convent receiving a donation of a fish. - The Coming of the Seljuks
Haroun-al-Raschid died in 809. At his death his great empire fell immediately into civil war and confusion, and the next great event of unusual importance in this region of the world comes two hundred years later when the Turks, under the chiefs of the great family of the Seljuks, poured southward out of Turkestan, and not only conquered the empire of Bagdad, but Asia Minor also. Coming from the northeast as they did, they were able to outflank the great barrier of the Taurus Mountains, which had hitherto held back the Moslems. They were still much the same people as those of whom Yuan Chwang gave us a glimpse four hundred years earlier, but now they were Moslems, and Moslems of the primitive type, men whom Abu Bekr would have welcomed to Islam. They caused a great revival of vigour in Islam, and they turned the minds of the Moslem world once more in the direction of a religious war against Christendom. - An Abbot travelling
We give here, from the St. Alban’s Book, a woodcut of an abbot on horseback, with a hat over his hood—“an abbot on an ambling pad;” he is giving his benediction in return to the salute of some passing traveller. - Babylonian Weather God
Babylonian Weather God - Ancient Serpent Idol
Finding it difficult to fasten their thoughts on invisible, intangible beings, men, at the beginning. probably sought to aid their worship be selecting some object to represent the being worshiped. - Rectory House, West Deane, Sussex - plan
The humble life of the country rectors and vicars. There is an ancient rectory house of the fourteenth century at West Deane, Sussex, of which we give a ground-plan and north-east view on the following page; but the rectory belonged to the prior and convent of Benedictine Monks of Wilmington, and this house was probably their grange, or cell, and may have been inhabited by two of their monks, or by their tenant, and not by the parish pries - Costume of a bishop
Costume of a Bishop or Abbot. - Idols of the Saxons
Hermensul or Irmensul and Crodon, Idols of the Ancient Saxons.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Annales Circuli Westphaliæ," by Herman Stangefol: in 4to, 1656.--The Idol Hermensul appears to have presided over Executive Justice, the attributes of which it holds in its hands. - Temple of Jupiter Ammon
The two Frenchmen had preluded their discoveries by an excursion to the oasis of Siwâh. At the end of 1819 they left Fayum with a few companions, and entered the Libyan desert. In fifteen days, and after a brush with the Arabs, they reached Siwâh, having on their way taken measurements of every part of the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and determined, as Browne had done, its exact geographical position. - Administering holy communion with the Housel cloth
From a 14th century manuscript - Pasht
Pasht, the goddess of Virtue, has a cat's head. She belonged to Lower Egypt, and was the wife of Amun-Ra and gave her name to the city Aphroditopolis. - An Abbot
The different kinds of religious men have already been mentioned from archbishops and abbots to the scurrilous impostors who used a religious exterior to rob poor people, at whose expense they lived well a wandering, loose, hypocritical life. In York, there were monks and friars, cathedral, parochial, and chantry priests, and clerks. The monastic life was a recognised profession. - Nuns at Riedlingen
Under other circumstances we would have spent a day or more at Riedlingen, where we found most interesting architecture along the river-front and saw a party of nuns at work in a hay-field. We had a little more social success with them than we did with their coreligionists, the monks at Beuron, for they turned their great, cool, flapping head-dresses in our direction, and actually seemed temporarily interested in our canoes, and in us as well. - The Church of St Etienne at Murray Bay
At the end of the bay stands the Far Village church in all her kindly, simple seriousness. Her bells ring out the angelus over the waters of the bay, along the shores, and back into the uplands, proclaiming that she is ready, like a hen gathering her chickens under her wings, to receive and comfort all the faithful. - The Universe
The universe, as it came from the mundane egg, is generally divided into fourteen worlds: seven inferior or lower worlds, and seven superior or upper worlds. The seven lower worlds are filled with all kinds of wicked and loathsome creatures. Our earth, which is the first of the upper worlds, it is said, is flat. The figure will give you some idea of it. - Isis and Horus
This trinity consisted of the god Serapis (= Osiris + Apis), the goddess Isis (= Hathor, the cow-moon goddess), and the child-god Horus. In one way or another almost every other god was identified with one or other of these three aspects of the one God, even the sun god Mithras of the Persians. - Truth
The four figures in the Vignette are intended to represent the chief protestant reformers; Luther in the centre, Cranmer on his right hand, Knox on his left, and Calvin on his extreme right; each holding in his hand a manuscript or printed copy of the Word of God. the Rock on which they are standing, is intended to denote the Truth of the doctrine of the Divine Oracle, on which, as on an immutable Rock, the Reformers rested all their claims, in labouring to restore pure Christianity. Around the Rock of Truth, the waves of Error and Superstition are seen dashing. - Polycarpus
Polycarpus, died in the year 170 Polycarpus, hearing that he was sought after, escaped, but was dicovered by a child. From this circumstance, and having dreamed that his bed suddenly became on fire, and was consumed in a moment, he concluded that it was God's will that he should seal his faith with martyrdom. - A Benedictine Abbot
The convent is the name especially appropriate to the body of individuals who composed a religious community. The whole convent was under the government of the abbot, who, however, was bound to govern according to the rule of the order. Sometimes he was elected by the convent; sometimes the king or some patron had a share in the election. Frequently there were estates attached to the office, distinct from those of the convent; sometimes the abbot had only an allowance out of the convent estates; but always he had great power over the property of the convent, and bad abbots are frequently accused of wasting the property of the house, and enriching their relatives and friends out of it. - Ignatius de Loyola
Ignatius de Loyola, 1491-1556 A.D. Inigo Lopez de Recalde, or Loyola, as he is commonly known, was born at Guipuzcoa, in Spain, in 1491. He was educated as a page in the court of Ferdinand the Catholic. He afterwards became a soldier and led a very wild life until his twenty-ninth year. During the siege of Pamplona, in 1521, he was severely wounded, and while convalescing he was given lives of Christ and of the saints to read. His perusal of these stories of spiritual combat inspired a determination to imitate the glorious achievements of the saints. - Professor Swing in the Pulpit
Prof. Swing is one of the leading personalities of the religious life of the city. He is a man of exceedingly plain exterior but his sermons are sound and forcible. It would be difficult to analyze his creed or that of the people who go to hear him. - Dns. Barth. de Wendone, Rector
In the picture is Dns. Bartholomeus de Wendone, rector of the church of Thakreston, and the character of the face leads us to think that it may have been intended for a portrait. His robe and hood and sleeves are scarlet, with black shoes. - St. Paula
The picture which we here give of an anchoress, is taken from a figure of St. Paula, one of the anchorite saints of the desert. - The Unknown Tongues—Daybreak at the National Scotch Church
About this time there was great talk of one Edward Irving, pastor of the Scotch National Church, in Regent Square, and the miraculous gift of tongues. In London, at all events, this peculiar manifestation seems to have commenced on Sunday, October 9th, when Mr. Irving delivered two sermons on the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, on which occasions the congregation was disturbed by individuals speaking in unknown language. During the morning's sermon, a lady (Mrs. Hall), thus singularly endowed, was compelled to retire to the vestry, where she was unable (so she said) to restrain herself, and spoke for some time in the unknown tongue, to the great surprise of the congregation. In the evening a Mr. Tamplin did the same, creating great confusion. Next Sunday a Mr. Carsdale was similarly affected, and these manifestations, afterwards, became common. The accompanying illustration is by Seymour, and purported to be sketched from life. It is called, "The Unknown Tongues—Daybreak at the National Scotch Church, Regent Square. Refrain from these Men, etc., Acts iv." Irving is seated, Mr. Tamplin is standing with an open book, Mrs. Hall is one of the ladies, and Mr. Carsdale leans his head on his hand. - Pilgrim Monk
Pilgrim Monk - Italian Jew
Costume of an Italian Jew of the Fourteenth Century.--From a Painting by Sano di Pietro, preserved in the Academy of the Fine Arts, at Sienna. - Ricardus de Threton, Sacerdos
Sir Richard de Threton, priest,who was executor of Sir Robert de Thorp, knight, formerly chancellor of the king, and who gave twenty marks to the convent. Our woodcut gives only the outlines of the full-length portrait. In the original the robe and hood are of full bright blue, lined with white; the under sleeves, which appear at the wrists, are of the same colour; and the shoes are red. the grateful monks of St. Alban’s have recorded the names and good deeds of those who had presented gifts or done services to the convent. - The Old South Church, Boston
At three o'clock a great throng of eager men again crowded into the Old South Church and the streets outside to wait for the return of Rotch. It was a critical moment. "If the Governor refuses to give the pass, shall the revenue officer be allowed to seize the tea and land it to-morrow morning?" Many anxious faces showed that men were asking themselves this momentous question. - The Spread of Buddhism
The Spread of Buddhism - Johanna de Warn
The picture represents Johanna de Warn, who also gave what is described as a well-built house, with a louvre, in St. Alban’s town. This house, again, is of timber, with traceried windows, an arched doorway with ornamental hinges to the door, and an unusually large and handsome louvre. This louvre was doubtless in the roof of the hall, and probably over a fire-hearth in the middle of the hall, such as that which still exists in the fourteenth-century hall at Pevensey, Kent. The lady’s face is strong corroboration of the theory that these are portraits. - Standards of the Church
Standards of the Church and the Empire.--Reduced from an Engraving of the "Entry of Charles V. and Clement VII. into Bologna," by Lucas de Cranach, from a Fresco by Brusasorci, of Verona. - Modern Jewish Rams Horn
Jewish Rabbis refer their use to Genesis. xxii. 13