Muskingum County, Ohio - Chapter 1: The Motjnd Builders, 1882 (part 2 of 2)

Such is the brief record at command; the barrenness, however, is relieved by the peculiar interest he took in the growth of his native town, and the pains he was at to preserve the personal reminiscences of the pioneers ; his aflFection glowed as he unfolded their good deeds. His own genial manner impressed the writer so that he often thought him a type of a race that seems almost extinct, but that was given to hospitality, and afforded the enjoyment of security from suspicion, amid friends that were true, under every trial, who sought to add to the comfort and enjoyment of their kind. This was a favorite thought with Mr. Church ; his was a warm and generous nature. So that it seems a reality to think we hear a well known friend of the family say, - Aye, my boy, kiss your mother, kiss her again; fondle your sweet sister; pass your little hand through the gray locks of your father ; love them tenderly while you can ! Make your good nights linger, with the words of your soul-love oft repeated to father, mother, sister, brother, though these loves shall die.

" Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, When on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture ; when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves."

And so we find him fond of home and the loved ones there ; and at the fireside telling o'er and o'er the events of the past - full of interest, for he kept a journal of passing events that extended over thirty years, noting many things it seems surprising he should have taken an interest in - the death individuals, the work of churches, the unsettling of an old pastor, and the calling of a new one; the election of church officers; the change of families in churches ; the change in county ofiicials ; but we forbear, adding only what you know so well, that he communicated through the press what he knew concerning the early history of Zanesville, in over eighty articles. He died March 22d, 1880; died as the spring dies into summer ; as the summer ripens into fall; as the leaves die, to spring forth into newness of life on the other shore. God was merciful to him, and he was gathered to his fathers, without terror.

At the time of his death the living children were John, George, Hattie, and Annie; Hattie is Mrs. John L. Clemens, of "Clemens & Son;" Annie is Mrs. Vincent Ferguson.

He was the oldest native born citizen in Zanesville at the time of his death, and, by his death, the chain, that binds us to the infant days of the city he loved so well, is shortened. One after an- . other, these much loved fathers are passing away, and it will not be long until the stranger may ask of us, as the Prophet of Israel, "Your fathers, where are they ? "

A feeling of sincere sadness pervaded the proceedings of the Directors of Odd Fellow's Hall Association, at their monthly meeting, held on the evening of April 6th, and expressions of ge-nuine sorrow fell from every one present, at the vacant chair of their late associate, Elijah H. Church. This chair Mr. Church has occupied for over twenty years, never missing a meeting, unless prevented by illness, or absence from the city. When first elected to the Board, the affairs of the Association were in a disastrously embarrassed condition. Besides heavy mortgages on the building, on which interest had accumulated, there was a large floating debt, and nothing but the personal security of two or three of the Directors saved the property from the hammer of the Sheriff. Mr. Church lived to see this valuable property entirely freed from every incumbrance, and its stock, whenever any was offered for sale, bringing double its face value in the market. Towards this success, the prudent counsels, economy, perseverance and personal labor of Elijah Church, essentially contributed. On adjournment, the following resolutions were ordered to be recorded on the minutes of the Association, published in the city papers, and a copy given to the family of the deceased :

"Resolved, That in the death of our old friend and associate, E. H. Church, the Board of Directors of Odd Fellows' Hall Association has lost a valuable member, to whose judgment, punctuality, encouraging advice, and unwearying energyi the stockholders are largely indebted.

'^Resolved, That the Order of Odd Fellows, to which Elijah H. Church was so long and affectionately attached, has lost a faithful brother whose long life and upright walk and conversation were an eminent example of the principles inculcated by the Order and embodied in its motto of " Friendship, Love and Truth."

"Resolved, That Zanesville has lost one of her oldest and worthiest citizens ; one possessing a remarkable love for the memories of its pioneer founders, and for the relics of the olden times, and one whose honesty, sterling integrity, fidelity to every duty, and attachment to his friends, deservedly gained for him the respect and honor of the whole community.

"Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with his bereaved family in the irreparable loss which they have sustained, and that we will long keep his many virtues and upright qualities of head and heart green in our remembrance.

By the same author : " There is another invocation in the Popol Vuh, containing some other names of Deity, a literal translation of which I shall give, after Brasseur :

" Hail ! O Creator, Maker ! who sees and hears "us! Do not leave us; do not desert us. O *' Qabauil, in the sky, on earth, soul of the sky, " soul of the earth. Give us children, posterity, " [as long as] the sun goes, and the light. Let " the seed grow, the light come. Many green

" paths, green roads, give us ; in peace, in white " peace, be the tribe ; in welfare, in white wel- " fare, be the tribe ; give us, then, happy life and "existence. O Hurakan, Chipi-cakulha, Raxa- "cakulha, Chipi-nanauac, Raxa-nanauac, Voc, " Hunaphu, Tepen, Gucumatz, Alom, Qaholom, ' ' Xpiyacoc, Xmucane - Grandmother of the Sun, " Grandmother of Light ; let the seed grow, the "light come." (P. 210.)

" Such was the prayer which, according to " Kiche traditions, their early ancestors ad- " dressed to the divinities, in those far-off years ' ' when they dwelt in the distant Orient, in the fer- " tile land of Paxil and Cayala, before they had "yet gone to Tulan to receive the tribal and fam- "ily gods which they adored in later days.

" Such is the testimony which these rude natives bear through the witness of their language . to the source and power of knowledge ; and such was the impression it made upon their untutored minds that even to this day, after more than three hundred years of Christian teaching, it is not the mild Judean Virgin, nor the severe Christian God, who is their highest deity, but it is the Wise Naoh, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Genius of Reason, who in secret receives their prayers as "the greatest of all the gods. They have also other divinities whose worship has constantly been retained in spite of all the efforts of the missionaries."

And March 26th, 1882, received a publication from the same painstaking and reliable author (Daniel G. Brinton, M. D.), "The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan, from which the following extracts (which the archaeological student will highly prize) are taken :

"Civilization in Ancient America rose to its highest level among the Mayas of Yucatan. Not to speak of the architectural monuments which still remain to to attest this, we have the evidence of the earlist missionaries to the fact that they alone, of all the natives of the New World, possessed a literature written in "Letters and characters," preserved in volumes neatly bound, the paper manufactured from the bark of a tree sized with a durable white varnish.

A few of these books still remain, preserved to us by accident in the great European libraries ; but most of them were destroyed by the monks. Their contents were found to relate chiefly to the pagan ritual, to traditions of the heathen times, to astrological superstitions, and the like. Hence, they were considered deleterious, and were burned wherever discovered.

This annihilation of their sacred books affected the natives most keenly, as we are pointedly informed by Bishop Landa, himself one of the most ruthless of vandals in this respect. But already some of the more intelligent had learned the Spanish alphabet, and the missionaries had added a sufficient number of signs to it to express with tolerable accuracy the phonetics of the Maya tongue. [This last clause is italicized by the compiler.] Relying on these memories, and, no doubt, aided by some manuscripts secretly pre- served, many natives set to work to write out in this new alphabet the contents of their ancient records. Much was added which had been brouglit in by Europeans, and much omitted which had become unintelligible or obsolete since the Conquest ; while, of course, -the different writers, varying in skill and knowledge, produced works of very various merit.

The last mentioned consist of translations of "the "Doctrina," Bible stories, narratives of events after the Conquest, etc., which I shall dismiss as of least interest.

The astrology appears partly to be reminiscences of that of their ancient heathendom, partly that borrowed from the European almanacs of the century 1550-1650. These, as is well known, were crammed with predictions and divinations. A careful analysis, based on a comparison with the Spanish almanacs of that time would d.bubtless reveal how much was taken from them, and it would be fair to presume that the remainder was a survival of ancient native theories.

But there' are not wanting actual prophecies of a much more striking character. These were attributed to the ancient priests and to a date long preceding ihe advent of Christianity. Some of them have been printed in translations in the "Historias" of Lizana and Cozolludo, and some of the originals were published by the late Abbe Crasseur de Bourbourg, in the second volume of the reports of the "Mission Scientifique au Mexique et dans TAmerique Centrale." Their authenticity has been met with considerable skepticism' by Waitz and others, particularly as they seem to predict the arrival of the Christians from the East and the introduction of the worship of the cross.

Another value they have in' common with all the rest of the text of these books, and it is one which will be properly appreciated bj- any student of languages. They are, by common consent of all competent authorities, the genuine productions of native minds, cast in the idiomatic forms of the native tongue by those born to its use. No matter how fluent a foreigner becomes in a language not his own, he can never vise it as does one who has been familiar with it from childhood. This general maxim is tenfold true when we apply it to Europeans learning an American language. The flow of thought, as exhibited in these two linguistic families, is in such different directions that no amount of practice can render one equally accurate in both. Hence the importance of studying a tongue as it is employed by the natives, and hence the very high estimate I place on these "Books of Chilan Ba- 1am" as linguistic material, an estimate much increased by the great rarity of independent composition in their own tongues by members of the native races of this continent.