a Marlborough and a Wellington, but there was a century be tween them, and those great commanders are but exceptions: they were great in spite of the vices of the system under which they rose.

13. Her military power is now less than it was fifty years ago during the wars consequent on the French Revolution · hough within that time she has more than doubled her popu ation, and trebled her manufactures and commerce.

EWING.

81. THE BIBLE.

The

[DONOSO CORTES is a popular philosopher and a brilliant poct. following extract is from a speech delivered in Madrid on the occasion of his reception as a member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Languages.]

TH

HERE is a book, the treasure of a nation, which has now become the fable and the reproach of the world, though in former days the star of the East, to whose pages all the great poets of the Western world have gone to drink in divine inspiration, and from which they have learned the secret of elevating our hearts and transporting our souls with superhuman and mysterious harmonies. This book is the Biblethe Book of books. In it Dante saw his terrific visions; from it Petrarch learned to modulate the voice of his complainings; from that burning forge the poet of Sorrentum drew for the splendid brightness of his songs.

2. In the Bible are written the annals of heaven, of earth, and of the human race. In it, as in the Divinity itself, is contained that which was, which is, and which is to come. In its first page is recorded the beginning of time and of all things in its last, the end of all things, and of time. It begins with Genesis, which is an idyl; it finishes with the Apocalypse of St. John, which is a funeral hymn.

3. Genesis is beautiful as the first breeze which refreshed the world, as the first flower which budded forth in the fields, as the first tender word which humanity pronounced, as the

first sun that rose in the East. The Apocalypse is sad, like the last throb of nature, like the last ray of light, like the last glance of the dying; and between that funeral hymn and that idyl we behold all generations pass, one after another, before the sight of God, and one after another, all nations.

4. There all catastrophes are related or predicted, and therefore immortal models for all tragedies are to be found there There we find the narration of all human griefs, and therefore the Biblical harps resound mournfully, giving the tone to all lamentations and to all elegies. Who will again moan like Job, when, driven to the earth by the mighty hand that afflicted him, he fills with his groanings and waters with his tears the valleys of Idumea?

5. Who will again lament as Jeremiah lamented, wandering around Jerusalem, and abandoned of God and meu? Who will be mournful and gloomy, with the gloom and mournfulness of Ezekiel, the poet of great woes and tremendous punishments, when he gave to the winds his impetuous inspiration, the terror of Babylon? Who shall again sing like Moses, when, after crossing the Red Sea, he chanted the victory of Jehovah, the defeat of Pharaoh, the liberty of his people?

6. Who shall again chant a hymn of victory like that which was sung by Deborah, the sybil of Israel, the amazon of the Hebrews, the strong woman of the Bible? And if from hymns of victory you pass to hymus of praise, what temple shall ever resound like that of Israel, when those sweet harmonious voices arose to heaven, mingled with the soft perfume of the roses of Jericho, and with the aroma of Oriental incense?

7. If you seck for models of lyric poetry, what lyre shall we find comparable to the harp of David, the friend of God, who listened to the sweet harmonies and caught the soft tones of the harps of angels? or to that of Solomon, the wisest and most fortunate of monarchs, the inspired writer of the song of songs; he who put his wisdom into sentences and proverbs, and finished by pronouncing that all was vanity?

8. If you seek for models of bucolic poetry, where will you

find them so fresh and so pure as in the Scriptural era of the patriarchate, when the woman and the fountain and the flower were friends, because they were all united-each one by itself the symbol of primitive simplicity and of candid innocence ?

9. A prodigious book that, gentlemen, in which the human race began to read thirty-three centuries ago, and although reading it every day, every night, and every hour, have not yet finished its perusal. A prodigious book that, in which all is computed, before the science of calculation was invented; in which, without the study of the languages, we are informed of the origin of languages; in which, without astronomical studies, the revolutions of the stars are computed; in which, without historical documents, we are instructed in history; in which, without physical studies, the laws of nature are revealed.

10. A prodigious book that, which sees all and knows all; which knows the thoughts that arise in the heart of man, and those which are present to the mind of God; which views that which passes in the abysses of the sea, and that which takes place in the bosom of the earth; which relates or predicts all the catastrophes of nations, and in which are contained and heaped together all the treasures of mercy, all the treasures of justice, and all the treasures of vengeance.

11. A book, in short, gentlemen, which, when the heavens shall fold together like a gigantic scroll, and the earth shall faint away, and the sun withdraw its light, and the stars grow pale, will remain alone with God, because it is his eternal word, and shall resound eternally in the heavens.

DONOSO CORTES.

82. INFLUENCE OF PAGAN CLASSICS ON RELIGION.

WB

HEN it is the object of an enemy to take possession of a strong place, he begins by occupying a favorable position, whence he destroys the outworks which protect the

heart of the fortress; and such are the tactics employed by paganism, which seeks to take revenge upon Christianity.

2. Established on the most favorable ground, that of edu cation, we have seen it batter literature, philosophy, the arts and sciences; then, under the pretext of regeneration, animate them with its spirit, enroll them under its banner, and march upon Christianity itself, which is the heart of the place, the true aim of all its attacks.

3. To prove the progress of the enemy on this point, and to show that classic paganism tends to the entire ruin of Christianity, is the important matter upon which we shall enter.

4. Classic paganism ruins Christianity in causing it to be forgotten, to be contemned, to be altered. Let us examine things as they are. From the family, where, generally speaking, he has received but a superficial knowledge of Christianity, the child enters an establishment for public instruction, where he remains for seven or eight years. If not the first, at least the second Latin or Greek book put into his hands is pagan; the third is pagan, the fourth is pagan, and, in fact, all are pagan, to the end of his studies.

5. His daily and hourly occupation is to read, to translate, and to commit to memory all the doings of paganism, from the exploits of the gods to those of the warriors, the orators, and the philosophers. In the classes nothing is heard but the names of Romans and Carthaginians. To identify the students. more completely with these models, the classes are divided into two camps, and the youth is either Greek or Roman,~ Scipio or Annibal.

6. The explanations of the professors never, or very rarely, furnish him with Christian notions. He lives in the midst of paganism; his horizon never, except by some unusual circum stance, extends beyond the limits of Greece and Italy. The Holy Mountain, the Palatine, Thebes, Sparta, Marathon, the Thermopylæ, the Tribune, the Capitol, the Areopagus, the Forum, are the only places upon which his thoughts, his imag ination and his memory dwell.

7. In giving our full tribute of praise to the zeal and virtue of our masters, we cannot help protesting loudly against the pagan system, under which our childhood was formed, and the ignorance in matters of religion that was the result of it. On leaving college, we knew by heart the names, the history, the attributes, the adventures of the gods and goddesses of fable; we knew the Danaides and the Parcæ, Ixion and his wheel, Tantalus with his torment, the feathered tribe of the Capitol and of Claudius.

8. Without a single mistake, we could have given the biography of Minos, of Eacus, of Rhadamanthus, of Codrus and of Tarquin, of Epaminondas, of Scipio and of Annibal, of Cicero and of Demosthenes, without counting that of Alexander and of Cæsar, of Ovid, of Sallust, of Virgil and of Homer. Lycurgus, Socrates, Plato, the Flamens, the Circus and the Amphitheatre, the sacrifices, the feasts, all were familiar to us.

9. In a word, we knew all that was desirable in young men of distinction in Rome and Athens, the offshoots of Brutus and of Gracchus, candidates for the glories of the Forum, adorers or future priests of Jupiter and of Saturn.

10. But if we had been transported into the arena of Christianity, and called upon to name the twelve Apostles, or the numbers of the Epistles; if we had been interrogated on our saints and martyrs, on our heroes and our glories, our Chrysostoms, our Augustines, our Athanasiuses, and our Ambroses, on these kings of Christian eloquence and philosophy, these fathers of the modern world, these masters of the science of life; if we, their children, and the children of the Church and of the martyrs, had been asked the date of their birth, what were the combats they sustained, the works they composed, the actions that commanded the admiration, the veneration o future ages, it would have been as an unknown tongue to us,

11. The blush on our cheek and the silence of our lips would have excited the pity of a man of sense, and convinced us of the nakedness of our classical studies. Such is our history, as it is doubtless that of many others.