700 THE STRUCTURE PROBABLY A TEMPLE. 
That such has always been considered by the natives, the design 
of these groups, may be seen from an account which the author 
of the Zeenut-ul-Mujalis gives of similar bas-reliefs at Persepolis, 
He says, “ There are several figures on the sculpture, carrying 
urns, in which the worshipper burnt benjamin while adoring the 
sun.” This, then, might have been a place of prayer for the in¬ 
habitants of villages ; the priest officiating within, on his altar of 
fire, while the people worshipped without, before the large open 
portals, in the manner that Prideaux describes to have been a 
custom adopted by the Jews on their return to the Holy Land 
after the Babylonian captivity. He mentions, supported by a nu¬ 
merous list of authorities, that the people who lived at too great a 
distance from Jerusalem to resort thither for ordinary worship, 
built courts for themselves, in imitation of that in the temple, 
where the laity prayed, while the priest in the sanctum performed 
his oblations ; and to these, in after-times, was given the name 
of Proseuchae. Synagogues appear to have been the churches of 
cities ; while these were the oratories of some extensive country 
district; and, being open at the top, surrounded with trees, and 
usually erected on hills, it is probable they were the high places , 
which we sometimes find mentioned in the Old Testament 
without terms of disapprobation ; the high place , or grove , not 
making an offence, unless an idol be worshipped there. 
It is more than curious to trace, in these resembling customs, 
the original affinity of these earliest nations of mankind; to 
see, that however some, like the Prodigal Son, had strayed 
from their fathers’ house and altars, a memory was yet left 
in every bosom, of the parent land; of the sanctuary in which 
they worshipped; of the God whom they adored. Though both 
Herodotus and Strabo, as I have noticed before, in some parts of 
