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Note H. p. 87.

Religious Kings are scattered, "like Angel's visits, short and far between, at distant intervals along the centuries of European History. In all this dreary length of way," they appear like five or six lighthouses, on as many thousand miles of coast." "The Good King Lewis is dead," was the simple proclamation in the streets of Paris, at the death of Lewis the 12th. Scores of Monarchs never deserved a sigh or a tear, for one who did: and yet of those scores, how many might not have uttered the hypocritical sentiment of the ambitious, deceitful, warlike Pericles, on his death-bed, "not a citizen of Athens has been obliged to put on mourning on my account." Napoleon might have said the same with equal truth; for not only hundreds of Athenians had to put on mourning, in the Samian and Peloponnesian wars; but the latter reduced his country to slavery and misery. When Edward 6th ran to take up, kiss, and replace the Bible, which one of his Council had laid on the ground, as a step to reach a paper; and when Robert, King of Sicily said, "the holy books are dearer to me than my kingdom," we behold a phenomenon. Henry of Navarre had no higher idea of a King's duties, than are found in his celebrated wish, that the meanest of his subjects might have a fowl for his Sunday dinner. Lewis the 14th, desired, (if his instructions to his grandson are to be believed against the tenor of his whole life) that the time might come, when not a beggar should be found in his kingdom. But George the 3d. longed to see the day, when not a subject should be without a Bible. If, instead of the Delphin Editions of the Classics, of which France was once so proud, the various books of the Bible had been edited by religious literati, with a view to the education of the Heir Apparent, and if they had been faithfully taught, who can doubt, that France would have been a blessing, instead of a curse, as she has been to Europe. While Charles the 5th held the sons of Francis the 1st as hostages in his stead, who would have imagined such a preposterous mode of spending their time, as Vida recommended, since he composed his art of poetry to teach the captive princes to write epic poetry!! But are we surprised at any thing from Vida, though a Christian Bishop, when we find him at the end of the 2d. Book, thus celebrating the death of Leo X, a Christian Pontiff, a servant of the meek and holy Jesus. He invokes the Gods of Rome, and chiefly Apollo; and paints in vision this vicegerent of God, as the offspring and priest of the Gods, high on his car and "Lord of the vanquished world, with captive kings and a barbarian host behind his chariot." He describes "the sacred Father," as treasuring up barbaric gold and heaps of spoil, in the sacred temples of the Redeemer, and finishes by a pagan denunciation of Providence, from the pen of a Christian Bishop!

"But by your crime, ye Gods, our hopes are cross'd,

And those imaginary triumphs lost."

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We are not surprised at such folly and impiety, as long as Christians shall feel and act, on subjects of education, in the spirit of a Christian minis

"Verum, heu! Dii, vestrum crimen! spes tanta repente

Italiæ absumpta, ac penitus fiducia cessit !

Egregius moriens heros secum omnia vertit."

ter's apology, (C. Pitt) " it would look indecent in one of my profession, not to spend as much time on the psalms of David, as on the hymns of Callimachus." While Princes shall be taught to write Epic poems on heathen models, and to value Homer and Virgil, as much as the Bible, their people must expect them to imitate Achilles and Agamemnon, Eneas and Turnus, rather than the Prince of Peace.

Note I. p. 88.

It is one of the remarkable features, and not the least shocking and disgusting, in the state of things among the ancients, that woman was shut out from social intercourse with the other sex; unless she spurned the character of Wife, Mother, Daughter, Sister, and became a Courtezan. Aspasia, Phryne, Lamia, Thais, &c. enjoyed the most refined and educated society of their day; while virtuous women exercised no influence beyond the domestic circle, being literally exiles from social life. Christianity has redeemed woman from an Egyptian bondage of soul, mind and heart. Whilst it has given greater depth, and sensibility, and delicacy to her affections, it has enlarged her understanding, purified her taste, adorned her manners, and dignified her character. Such women as Hannah More, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, are the triumph and illustration of Christian influences. England has more reason to be proud of Mrs. Hemans, so holy and pure, than France of Mad'lle Le Fevre, (afterwards Madame Dacier) when unmarried, the translator of the vile and licentious Anacreon, when married, of the vile and licentious Horace and Plautus. It would have been more to her credit, to have burnt those versions unpublished, as Henault did his translation of Lucretius, at the instance of his confessor, than to have printed them, and received the praise of Boileau, that hers ought to deter any person from a translation of Anacreon into verse. I have said nothing in the Address on the subject of Female Education, as to the great question there discussed. But no one can doubt, that the same principles and arguments are even more applicable to the instruction of daughters than of sons. Woman is emphatically the child of the Scriptures. By them she has been invested with a moral beauty, and crowned with a moral dignity, that have indeed elevated her, when compared with females of Antiquity, to a rank in the creation, a little lower than the Angels. May the Mothers of our Land, yet employ their holy influences, in preparing the way for that millennial change, when the Bible shall be a class-book in every school and college within our borders! It is difficult for a man, who values female purity, delicacy and modesty, to imagine a grosser insult to his daughter or sister, than for Demoustier to have addressed to her, the "Lettres a Emilie sur la mythologie." The writer was only fit to have kept the company of such women as the courtezans of Antiquity; if we are to judge of his ideas of female character from those Letters. The Society of christian women, purified, exalted, sanctified by religion, would have been to him full of rebuke and reproach. Those Letters are a fair specimen of a Lady's Pantheon, full of insult to her good sense, her virtue and her delicacy.

Note K. p. 94.

To those who admire the Classics so extravagantly, as to forget, as most seem to do, that such a book as the Bible exists, (if we judge at least from their schemes of education) I would recommend the follow

ing sentiments of Fenelon, than whom a more calm, dignified and dispassionate judge, never compared Christian with Heathen Classics.

"The Scripture surpasses the most ancient Greek authors, vastly in native simplicity, liveliness and grandeur. Homer himself never reached the sublimity of Moses' Songs, especially the last, which all Israelitish children were to learn by heart. Never did any Ode, either Greek or Latin, come up to the loftiness of the Psalms, particularly "The Mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken." This surpasses the utmost stretch of human invention. Neither Homer nor any other poet ever equaled Isaiah describing the Majesty of God, in whose sight " the nations of the earth are as small dust, yea, less than nothing and vanity," seeing it is he that stretcheth out the heavens "like a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." Sometimes this prophet has all the sweetness of an eclogue in the smiling image he gives us of peace, and sometimes he soars so high, as to leave every thing below him. What is there in Antiquity, that can be compared to the lamentations of Jeremiah, when he tenderly deplores the misery of his country? Or the prophecy of Nahum, when he foresees in spirit the proud Nineveh fall under the rage of an invincible army? We fancy that we see the army and hear the noise of arms and chariots. Every thing is painted in such a lively manner, as strikes the imagination-the prophet far outdoes Homer. Read likewise Daniel denouncing to Belshazzar, the Divine vengeance ready to overwhelm him, and try if you can find any thing in the most sublime originals of antiquity, that can be compared to those passages of Sacred writ. As for the rest of Scripture, every portion of it is uniform and constant, every part bears the peculiar character that becomes it. The history, the particular detail of laws, the descriptions, the vehement and pathetic passages, the mysteries and prophecies, the moral discourses, in all these, appears a natural and beautiful variety. In short, there is as great a difference between the Heathen poets and the prophets, as there is between a false enthusiasm and the true. The sacred writers being truly inspired, do in a sensible manner express something divine, while the others, striving to soar above themselves, always show human weakness in their loftiest flights."-Cambray's Dialogues upon Eloquence.

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NOTE L. p. 94.

It is a remarkable fact, that the Bible, is the only book, which has ever been translated from a sense of duty. All other books have been translated as matter of enjoyment, as presents to Literature, or to make money. But the Bible has been dealt with in this particular, as became its holiness and purity, its awful sanctions and eternal usefulness. It has been translated, in the spirit of the commandment, to preach the Gospel to the poor: in the spirit of the song of the heavenly host, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Corneille, it is said, had in his Library translations of the Cid, in every European language, except the Slavonic and Turkish. But no human power can give to a human author so general, and durable a character, as to ensure to his works that universal interest and perpetual influence, which are indispensable to their living every where, through all time, in every language. To the Bible only, is assigned this universal dominion, in every language, over every people. The utter insignificance of the whole body of Classical Literature is seen at once, when

we reflect, that the Bible only will be the foundation of new states of society, and the standard of education among all the heathen world, destined to be converted by it. The Bible only will be sent forth with the Missionary to speak to every nation under heaven, in their own tongue. The absolute worthlessness of the Classics, when compared with the Bible, cannot be exhibited in a more striking light, than by the suggestion to translate them, and send them abroad through the heathen world, to the Chinese and the Hindoo, to the Persian and the Tartar, to the North American Indian, and the Islanders of the South Sea. The most extravagant admirers of the classics, among Christians at least, would shudder at such a proposal, as an act of folly and madness, ruinous to the heathen, and mockery to God. Ask them to send translations of Homer and Virgil, of Phædrus and Ovid, hand in hand with the Bible, to the Hottentot and Mohawk, to Burmah, Ceylon and Madagascar, and they would reject the idea with horror, as little less than sacrilege. And yet, although they would esteem it a sin, to subject the Heathen to the Pagan influence of Greece and Rome, even with the Bible, they persist in exposing their own children to those very influences, without the Bible, as a part of the scheme of education!! When will the christian world acknowledge the Bible, in spirit and in truth, in thought, word and deed, to be their standard of all that is good and great, honorable, pure and lovely? When will they acknowledge practically, in their schemes of education, that the Bible is every thing, the classics of Greece and Rome, when compared to it, nothing?

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