In a south-eastern direction from the Acropolis, at the distance of about five hundred yards from the foot of the rock, stand sixteen gigantic columns, of the Corinthian order. They are the remains of a temple which formerly boasted of an hundred and twenty. The length of the edifice, measured upon the upper step, was three hundred and fifty-four feet; its breadth one hundred and seventy-one. The columns of this stupendous edifice were six feet and a half in diameter, and more than sixty feet high. The entire building was constructed with the marble from the quarries of Pentelicus.

"From the contemplation of a building of these extraordinary dimensions, and of a cost commensurate with its extent and the beauty of its execution, we are naturally led to an enquiry after the bold projector of a structure worthy of the Athenian people in the most brilliant period of their history. From among the most celebrated temples of antiquity, Vitruvius has selected four examples, which he extols as surpassing all others in extent and magnificence: these were the temple of Diana at Ephesus, that of Apollo at Miletus, the mystic temple of Ceres at Eleusis, aud the temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens.

"Whether or not the ruins in question formed a part of the Athenian temple which ancient writers have concurred in celebrating, may be thought to depend, in a great measure, upon the magnitude of the building in its original state, compared to that of the others with which the Olympicum is conjointly mentioned by Vitruvius; and it is material to the identification of these ruins with the object of the eulogium of this author, to show, that in point of extent, it was not inferior to one, at least of the four selected examples."

Scarcely any author of antiquity who has had occasion to speak of Athens, fails to mention the efforts made to complete a temple dedicated to Jupiter Olympius. It remained unfinished till the time of Hadrian, though it appears to have been projected in the first instance by Pisistratus. Our author's conclusion is, that these columns are the remains of this wonderful structure; and we think his conclusion as just as his reasonings are ingenious.

Of the work in general, we would say, that in it has been accomplished the object for which it was undertaken; and we are persuaded that it will be perused with pleasure by all for whom Greece and her antiquities have charms, and who wish to attain a clear idea of the principal monuments of Athens and their relative situations."

ART. VII.-Discourses on the Evidence of the Jewish and Christian Revelation. By Sir HENRY MONCRIEF WellWOOD, Bart. D.D., &c.

(Concluded from page 45.)

Ir was not unreasonable to suppose, that those who already believed in the existence and superintendance of one only God, would be much better prepared for the reception of Christianity, than those who blindly invested with the attributes and honours of the Deity every object of their fear and love: and consequently that Jews would become Christians more readily than Greeks or Vandals. But in this, as in many other cases, the result to which experience conducts, is different from that which theory would lead us to expect; for it has been found much more easy to expose the absurdity of polytheism, than to demonstrate to the satisfaction of some zealous theists, that our faith is built upon a sound foundation. Where a disposition to be convinced is wanting, the progress made in religious knowledge is an impediment, rather than a help to conviction on some abstruse subjects in Christian theology. The founder of our religion himself, when he invites us to cultivate docility of mind, clearly intimates the necessity of it; and there is no other way of accounting for the scepticism of many men of enlarged capacity, than by supposing them unwilling to be convinced. It cannot be doubted, after what we have all seen, that prejudice is generally much more difficult to combat than ignorance; and that argument is seldom very efficacious when it opposes the passions or the interests of men. The pride of the Jew was wounded, and his ambitious expectations disappointed, by the Christian dispensation; and he could not be persuaded to believe that the prophecies had been fulfilled. The less enlightened, but more humble Pagan soon discovered the superiority of the new system, and yielded to the evidence which his own senses, or the sufficient testimony of others, so amply afforded him. The correct opinions which the Jews entertained respecting the Supreme Being were accompanied with certain other opinions and traditions for which there was no good foundation; and they would have parted as readily with the one, as with the others. Their minds were satisfied as to the conduct which God had resolved to pursue with his creatures; and

when given to understand that this conduct was to be dif ferent from what they expected, instead of applying dili gently to the enquiry-whether it was consistent with what they had a right to expect, they came hastily to the fatal conclusion, that the promulgator of this disagreeable doctrine was not the Messiah of the God of Israel.

Besides the unfortunate position of their affairs, which seemed, as we formerly observed, to require a temporal deliverer rather than a spiritual ruler, there were other causes which served to account for their erroneous suppositions respecting the character of the Messiah. The rewards and punishments assigned to their conduct by the law were, for the most part, temporal; and they do not, except in a very few instances, appear to have been accustomed to look for any of their happiness beyond the grave. Worldly prosperity and the peaceable possession of a land flowing with milk and honey, were the inducements usually held out for obedience to the will of God; while every species of temporal adversity were threatened as the punishment of disobedience. As a nation, the penalty of their sins was that their enemics should prevail against them, that they should be deprived of the land which the Lord their God had given them, and carried into captivity among strangers: as individuals, they were taught to expect poverty, calamity, disease, and death: but further than this they had no apprehensions; they did not suppose that the sinner would have to endure, in another state of existence, the misery which his offences had entailed upon him. The most abandoned offenders received with horror the dreadful sentence-" Thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers;"-but, for their immortal part, they seem to have been under no alarm. Both their hopes and their fears regarded sublunary things; while those which they were told the Christian religion would inspire, were of a higher kind. The feelings to which appeal was to be made, as well as the doctrines which were to be propagated, were quite new to them ;-why wonder then that the appeal was in many instances unsuccessful, and that the doctrines frequently met with opposition or neglect?

That firm attachment to the ceremonial part of their law, for which, especially after the captivity, they were so remarkable, was an insurmountable obstacle in the way of their conversion to Christianity; as they could not but look with a jealous eye upon a teacher, who seemed to undervalue its efficacy, and to intend its abrogation. They were not fully

convinced of the important truth-that "to obey is better than sacrifice;" and their displeasure was excited by being told, that no outward sanctity, no heartless shew of reverence for the Deity, no strictness of adherence to forms-though of divine appointment, could atone for the wilful violation of any of those precepts of morality and piety, of which external observances ought to be merely the signs. They cer tainly were not prepared to hear "that circumcision availed nothing," and they felt the most poignant disappointment at discovering that their religious rites, instead of being made obligatory upon the rest of mankind, were, for the future, to become unnecessary even to themselves. They knew the Mosaic dispensation to be of heavenly origin, and it was their pride and delight. The person calling himself the Messiah, in his addresses to the people, annulled ancient institutions to which they were fondly attached; and laid additional stress upon others which were already disagreeable to them. With the multitude, therefore, a plausible argument was used;" Will God destroy his own work? This man of Gallilee, who pretends to be the Christ, if he were sent by God, would not set himself up in opposition to God's ordinances. He is an impostor, and we will not believe on him."

It did not, moreover, serve to recommend the new dispensation to the Jews, that the benefits to flow from it were to be universally felt; although the words in which the original prophecy was conveyed, clearly expressed that all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in the Redeemer of Israel. The Jews, indeed, had little intercourse of a friendly kind with any of the nations that surrounded them. By all of them they were despised; by many of them they had been, at various times, cruelly oppressed; and while they must have considered it a palpable violation of the law to admit the Gentiles to an unconditional participation in their privileges, they must also have thought it disgraceful to be reconciled with their inveterate enemies, without having exacted the atonement, which, in conformity with the usual practice of nations, they regarded as justly their due. They had been accustomed to look upon an affront offered to them as to be expiated only by the utter destruction of those who offered it; and the many instances in which, as their history informs us, the wickedness of their neighbours had provoked the Almighty to command their destruction, and to make his chosen people the instrument of their punishment, encouraged

the expectation that God would again fight on their side, and again enable them to triumph. The divine precepts→ "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you"-had not found their way into Judæa; and the Jews, as well as the rest of the world, thought themselves fully at liberty to usurp the peculiar attribute of the King of kings, and to execute vengeance on all who injured them.

There was also another objection, which, though of slight importance during the life-time of our Lord, and before the scheme of Christianity came to be fully understood, deserves to be mentioned, on account of the consequences it afterwards produced. The Gentiles were not simply to be admitted into the Christian covenant; they were to be admitted without being obliged to submit to those forms and ceremonies which God had appointed for the proselytes to Judaism. They could not help thinking that, if the heathen could be entitled to all the blessings then offered to mankind without yielding to circumcision and the other legal observances, that moral and religious pre-eminence which they trusted they had maintained, would eventually be lost, and the name of Jew come to denote nothing more than the nation to which the individual who bore it belonged. It must have been most unpleasing to those who valued themselves upon being God's favourite people, and elevated above the rest of mankind by a peculiar revelation, and by laws and customs established by Heaven itself, to discover that the spiritual kingdom of Christ was to embrace the whole human race alike; and that they were to receive no higher honours or rewards in it, than those to which the Gentiles might aspire. It must have mortified them to reflect, that the burden of the law had been borne by them in vain. And, on the whole, we cannot wonder that they did not witness without regret the disappointment of their long-cherished hopes of receiv ing in the Messiah a prince and a conqueror, who should redress their wrongs and revenge their injuries; who should reign over them in earthly glory, and fasten the heavy yoke of their ceremonial law upon the necks of all around them. Such were the obstacles opposed to the reception of the glad tidings of salvation. And though we cannot, consistently with the positive declaration of scriptures, and with the rule we have ourselves laid down, allow that such arguments amount to a justification of the conduct observed by the Jews; yet it must (we think) be admitted, that circum