116 Christian audience we speak, must believe that no other than such a Literature can be perpetuated. None other, indeed, harmonizes with the Christian system; none other can be its handmaid, its counselor and defender, in the reformation of Christian, and the transformation of Pagan communities. He, who looks abroad over the world as it is, and contemplates, in the visions of philanthropy, or the prophecies of Scripture, that world as it is to be, cannot but realize how much remains to be done by a purified, elevated, moral Literature. Such a Literature only is worthy to vindicate and recommend, to illustrate and adorn Religion: and to advance, with an ever-accelerated step, the best interests of free, peaceful, educated, Christian Nations. Such a Literature, in all its departments of truth and fiction, and we speak it to the dishonor of Christendom, but especially of the Reformation, such a Literature has never existed. Yet such a Literature must exist, and must continue its ascent, from one height of glory to another, ""Till every bound at length shall disappear, We are now speaking of Literature, in its most comprehensive meaning, as embracing every species of composi-tion, whether in Religion or morals, in diplomacy, legislation or jurisprudence, in history or philosophy, in poetry or eloquence. We are sensible, that in the narrow sense, in which the term is generally used, as descriptive of polite, or elegant literature, there are many who imagine, that it has no community of interest, no sympathy of feeling with Religion. But the error lies in judging of such literature, by the forms in which it has appeared, and by the spirit which has animated it, rather than by those forms and by that spirit, of which it is capable. When the block of marble lay before Michael Angelo, he beheld in its savage mass, with the poetic eye of a sculptor, the grandeur and beauty of the perfect statue. But the chiseler saw nothing beyond its shapeless surface. Yet scarcely had he struck from it, flake after flake, in obedience to the genius and taste of his master, when even his imagination was kindled, and he started back in wonder at the rapid development of its future glories. Thus will polite Literature appear even to unpracticed eyes, whenever the Bacon or the Newton, the Calvin or the Luther of this department shall arise, and remodel with the bold spirit of a reformer, and the purified taste of a Christian, the whole system of elegant Literature. Painting, said Paul Veronese, is a gift from heaven: and elegant Literature would indeed be a heavenly gift, if it were Christian. Let it not be said, that the Scriptures were never intended to be the basis or model of Literature; and that such an association degrades their majesty, and soils their purity. For ourselves, we hold that when justly considered, Literature is a part, though but a subordinate part, in the scheme of Providence, in the moral Government of the world. God has not indeed revealed his will, to teach us either the truths of philosophy, or the beauties of Literature. As however, the former are inherent in his Works, so are the latter but the results of their natural influence over the mind and the heart. The sublime and the beautiful in Nature, were not ordained simply to be gazed at, but likewise, to furnish the materials and incentives for elegant Literature. Neither were the passions of man created, only for the practical purposes of human life; but also, as we are confident, to be inexhaustible fountains of polite Literature. May we not indeed well believe that such uses are embraced within the scheme of the Scriptures? And are they not, if we regard the natural world, inseparable from the very law of its being; if we regard the moral world, from the very end of its creation? Can it be seriously contended, that God did not contemplate Literature in all its elegant forms, as honorable to himself and useful to the human race, as incident to the study of mankind, and to the cultivation of a taste for the beauties of Nature and of the Scriptures? We do not assuredly find any sanction for a vulgar or a licentious, for an extravagant or unfeeling Literature, in the works of Creation, in the order of Providence, or in the Scriptures of truth. But the study of these manifestations of divine power and goodness, unfolds so naturally all the beauty and refinement of the most accomplished Literature, as to leave no doubt, that it has been ordained as a mode of our being. It is indeed a mode, in which the Creator loves to be honored and praised, by the cultivation of our powers, in all the variety and grandeur, novelty and loveliness, of which the soul is susceptible. Such being the true character and destiny of polite Literature, how surprising is the fact, that it should almost universally have dishonored God and have degraded or cor rupted man. How can this phenomenon be accounted for? The causes must be sought in the melancholy truth, that the great body of literary men have never written, either under a sense of duty to God, or in the Spirit of usefulness to man. Necessity or the love of fame, emulation or envy, love or hatred has been the ruling motive with countless numbers. And why have these inducements possessed such transcendant authority, over the minds and hearts of this host of Authors? The chief reason must be traced to the absolute exclusion of the Bible, as the only standard of duty, the only fountain of usefulness, from all our schemes of education. But the banishment of Sacred Literature from them may well be assigned as an auxiliary cause, that has exerted a powerful, extensive and enduring influence. When the Gauls were ravaging with fire and sword the city of Rome, Albinus bore away in his chariot the vestal Virgins, and left his family to perish; but the Christian scholar, with no such dreadful alternative before him, is content to leave the Vestal Virgin of sacred Literature to perish; while he welcomes to his home, as the choicest friends and instructors of his children, the Priests of Mars, and Bacchus, and Venus, the poetry and mythology of Pagan Antiquity. Language can hardly express too strongly and vividly, our astonishment, indignation and sorrow, that such should be the fact. Let us now consider what explanation can be given of this extraordinary truth. We should have rejoiced, before we proceeded with this inquiry, to review with a rapid glance, the history of Literature. We should have rejoiced to stand, as it were in the center of this vast and magnificent Panorama, and to contemplate the splendid succession of the monuments of its glory, from the cathedral grandeur and chaste Architecture of Hebrew Literature, to the Gothic pile, the enchanted castle and the fairy palace of Literature, in the British Isles. But our time will not permit us to survey this Coliseum of the Arts and Sciences. We must enter at once on our subject. The existence of such Poetry, as is to be found in the Pentateuch, five hundred and fifty years before the age of Homer, and of such history, as is contained in the same collection, one thousand years before Herodotus, is of itself one of the highest proofs of the divinity of the Scriptures. In all other Countries the style of poetry has preceded by many a century, the style of prose; but here we behold both of them, written at the same time and in the same work, with a skill and beauty never rivaled, except in other parts of the holy volume. That such a body of Literature should have appeared successively, during one thousand and fifty years, from Moses to Malachi, among such a people as the Jews, unaided by the leading influences, that have produced the Literature of other Nations, is the more unaccountable, when we consider its vast superiority over every other, and the perfection of its language, in its earliest form as a written tongue, without any discoverable, or even imaginable, antecedent progress, preparatory to its fulness of glory in the works of Moses. Shall we not, indeed, adopt the language of the Psalmist, so happily applied by Lord Chesterfield, to one of the most memorable events of English History, "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes!" In all that period of one thousand and fifty years, notwithstanding the changes in the form of government, and the revolutions in the state of society; whether the Nation was at the summit of power and glory, or sunk in the abyss of misery and captivity; whether the true religion swayed the Prince and the people, or both of them bowed before the shrines of Idolatry, the same dignity and gravity, the same simplicity and purity mark the style; the same originality and grandeur of thought, the same comprehensive and lofty genius, the same beauty and chastity of sentiment distinguish the intellectual power of the sacred Authors. All other literature has been degraded and deformed by bombast and conceit, by puerile sentiment and unnatural exaggeration, by vanity and ambition, by passion and prejudice. But no such reproach can be cast upon the Literature of the Scriptures. In them, all is elevated, pure, lovely, consistent. This is the more remarkable, when we reflect, that Hebrew is the primitive oriental Literature.* And yet, whilst it possesses, in an unrivaled degree, all the distinguishing excellencies of Eastern Literature, it is entirely free from the peculiar defects of orientalism. Indeed, we may justly say, that there is no valuable quality of thought or style in any Literature, Ancient or Modern, but the same is surpassed in the Scriptures of the Children of Israel. * Note B. Denina has said, in his Revolutions of Literature, that the age of the Antonines produced no poetry, because the subjects of poetry had been exhausted. If he looked at Classic Antiquity, as at once the fountain and standard, he was right; for, with the exception of Claudian's verse, the last wave had gushed from that fountain of Arethusa. However admirably the classics may exhibit the various forms of Literature, however skilfully they may be finished, as models of style, are we blind to the fact, that they never have furnished the MATERIALS of the noblest and best Literature of the modern nations? The more indeed, the great modern writers have rejected the constituent elements of Classic Antiquity, the better have they succeeded. Do we forget, that we have laid aside for ever the religion, state of society, and forms of government; the political, social and domestic economy; the legislation and commerce; the military and naval warfare; the scheme of morals and manners; the forms of public and private life; the social intercourse and domestic habits, and pre-eminently the female character of antiquity? Hence, the classics can no longer be regarded as a storehouse of MATERIALS for Literature.* But the predominant feature of the Bible, is THOUGHT, universal in its operation, imperishable in its character, endless in its varieties, and unbounded in its relations. The Bible then is the only storehouse of universal Literature, of a Literature fitted to every clime and every age, to every state of society and form of government. We are too apt to believe, and it is one of the calamities of Modern Literature, that nothing can rival classic excellence, that nothing can be regarded as finished, except it conform to some classic model. But the beauties of the Scriptures are essentially, characteristically, the beauties of THOUGHT; while those of the classic writers are chiefly to be found in the structure of their compositions, and in their style. In the workmanship of their materials, they have displayed the consummate skill and delicate taste of accom plished artists; but the materials themselves were unworthy of the genius conferred on them by the Creator of all genius. The authors of Greece and Rome were indeed the morning star of modern Literature, but the Bible only can be its |