572 



The Pillar Towers of the British Islands. 



[No. 5, 



degree of skill that has never been surpassed, and at a time when the 

 inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland were in a state of great rudeness. 

 The towers were well adapted for defending their persons and effects 

 from the rapacity of the warlike chiefs among whom they dwelt. 

 From the elevated windows they could descry their enemies ; on which 

 they raised the entrance ladder, shut and secured the high door, and 

 gave warning to their friends at a distance. 



The able and enthusiastic pagan architects may have refused to 

 construct any other sacred buildings than their sacred Pillar Tower ; as 

 they appear to have erected the standing stones only, in the north-east 

 of Scotland. These at first bore only the pagan symbols, to which 

 conquering races afterwards added the symbols of the Christian faith. 

 In like manner in Ireland, at first a sacred pillar was erected, on which 

 the national ornaments and Christian emblems were placed, in a more 

 advanced state of the arts. In no other erections of the earlier period 

 was the same architectural superiority exhibited, as sacred forms were 

 alone considered worthy of the exertions of the architects. 



In peaceable times, the missionaries collected their followers by 

 sounding the horn or beating the drum at stated times ; and from the 

 elevated doorway, they performed their religious ceremonies and 

 exhorted the people, as they did in Scotland while standing by the side 

 of the sacred erect stones bearing pagan emblems, to which the 

 Christian cross appears to have been afterwards added. It would be 

 difficult to construct any other building that would possess so many 

 advantages as the Pillar Tower. 



From the above facts I conclude — 



1. That the Pillar Towers were first erected in Asia as a religious 

 symbol ; and the form was modified in foreign and unsettled countries 

 in order to afford protection to the persons, the relics, and other 

 valuable effects of the builders. 



2. That eastern missionaries erected those sacred symbols in Ireland, 

 as places of refuge and observation, from whence they could alarm their 

 friends by the blast of the horn, the clang of the cymbal and the roll 

 of the drum during the day ; and by waving a torch from the aper- 

 tures at the top of the Tower at night. 



3. These Towers were found so useful that they were adopted by 

 conquering races, who decorated them with their national ornaments, 

 and Christian symbols* 



