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ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA.

A

POPULAR DICTIONARY

OF

ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE, HISTORY, POLITICS, AND
BIOGRAPHY.

A NEW EDITION;

INCLUDING

A COPIOUS COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL ARTICLES

IN

AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY;

ON

THE BASIS OF THE SEVENTH EDITION OF THE GERMAN

Conversations-Lexicon.

EDITED BY

FRANCIS LIEBER,

ASSISTED BY

E. WIGGLESWORTH AND T. G. BRADFORD.

VOL. IX.

BOSTON:

BAZIN AND ELLSWORTH.

1859.

AE5

5333 1859 v. 9

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1831, by
CAREY AND LEA,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

ENCYCLOPÆDIA AMERICANA.

"to the unknown God," mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, is also a proof of the prevalence of the same feeling. Reflecting minds, too, were always found, who deviated from the national polytheism, as the heathen philosophers, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, &c., and many later Platonists, the Egyptian philosopher Psammon, who, according to Plutarch (Life of Alexander), inculcated the doctrine that God is the general Father of all men, choosing the best of them for his chil dren. The history of the Hebrews affords the most striking instance of the preservation of monotheism amid the corruptions of paganism. Notwithstanding the errors into which they were frequently led by the example of the nations around them, they still preserved the idea of one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, till, from their view of Jehovah, whom they regarded and adored, for the most part, only as the original God of the chosen people, was unfolded the purer and more comprehensive monotheism of Christianity.

MONOTHEISM; the belief in, and worship of, a single God, opposed to a plurality of gods (polytheism). The most ancient written records (the Bible), and the traditions of the most ancient nations, give us cause to regard this religion (in an mperfect state indeed) as the oldest and original religion. The Mosaic annals speak of God as the Creator of heaven nd earth; and the ancient doctrines of the Eramins speak of a single divine nature holding preeminence over the three other principal divinities, which are to be regarded, as it were, as the three chief energies of a supreme God, viz. of the Parabrama, who is fully and clearly set forth, with all the attributes of divinity. The Chaldeans,also,besides the light which they opposed to darkness, believed in a higher increate light, which is eternal, almighty, wise and good, and from which first proceeded the corporeal light. The Persians placed above their Ormuzd and Ahriman their Zeruanon Akherme, and the eternal word. Even the Egyptians had, in their Eikton, a Supreme Being, at least for their secret religion. All the different mythologies have, among the host of gods with which they people heaven and earth, some supreme God, more or less defined, but, in every case, distinguished above the others. And in every instance we see, in these mythologies, the gods gradually multiplied, as man departed, farther and farther, from the simple and original revelation, till lost in the multitude of deified personifications which he had himself creuted; but even in the case of the most refined polytheism, there always remains an idea of something more powerful, to which even the gods are subject, as the Fate of the ancients. The altar at Athens,

MONOTHELITE. (See Maronites.)

MONROE, James, one of the presidents of the U. States, was born April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the Potomac, on land of which, a century and a half before, his ancestor, who first migrated to this country, was the original grantee. He was educated at William and Mary college, and, in 1776, entered the revolutionary army as a cadet. He was soon after appointed a lieutenant, and, in the summer of that year, marched to New York, and joined the army under the command of general Washington. He was engaged in the battle of Harlen Heights, in that of White Plains in the

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