carers[1] of the earth, as opposed to Turan, the abode of restless horse-riding nomads—of Turks, in short; for in their name the root survives, and still distinguishes the great Turanian or Mongolian family from the Aryan, Iranian, or Indo-European race. It is scarce worth while to inquire—even if inquiry could lead to any result—what cause set them in motion from their ancient seats. Whether impelled by famine or internal strife, starved out like other nationalities in recent times, or led on by adventurous chiefs, whose spirit chafed at the narrownessof home, certain it is that they left that home and began a wandering westwards, which only ceased when it reached the Atlantic and the Northern Ocean. Nor was the fate of those they left behind less strange. At some period almost as remote as, but after, that at which the wanderers for Europe started, the remaining portion of the
and expand too; that it really matters nothing at all, as an act of faith, whether the world is six thousand or six million years old; that it must have had a beginning; that there must be one great first cause, God. Surely there is no better way to bring His goodness into question, to throw doubt on His revelation, and to make it the laughing-stock of the irreligious, than thus to clip the wings of faith, to throw her into a dungeon, to keep her from the light of day, to make her read through Hebrew spectacles, and to force her to be a laggard and dullard, instead of a bright and volatile spirit, forward and foremost in the race of life.
- ↑ "But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest."—Shakspeare, Dedication to Venus and Adonis.
