northern Nations, more grand, terrible, and marvellous, than that of ancient Greece; in the relics of Gothic States of society and of feudal institutions; in Eastern fictions, and the power, magnificence and letters of the Mohammedan Empire, in the wild, adventurous spirit of Northern Europe, and in the sentiment, gallantry and luxury of the South; in the age of chivalry, the wonders of the Crusades, and the wars with the Saracens; in new states of Society, manners and customs; and, throughout the whole period, in the influence of woman, over the mind, the heart and the character, in the State and in the Church, in all the forms of public and private life, but above all in social and domestic circles. These indeed are a fund, incomparably more rich and various, than the Greeks and Romans ever possessed. Perhaps then, the question may be asked, why are the Moderns according to the received opinion, inferior to the Ancients? Without conceding the fact, and we utterly deny it, we assign in our judgment, adequate reasons, when we reply, first and chiefly, because they have neglected the Scriptures so much, and next, because they have been to such an extent, the "pedissequi Senatores" of Greek and Roman models. Nor can it be doubted, that Latin Authors have been the basis of modern Literature, to a far greater extent, than those of Greece. Yet these have been always acknowledged superior to those in the energy, beauty and variety both of thought and style. Casimir, the Polish Poet, read Virgil sixty times, and every other Latin Poet thirty; and Bernardine Maffæi, that he might not injure the purity of his Latin style obtained from the Pope a dispensation, to read his breviary in Greek. In these instances, we behold an illustration of the comparative neglect of Greek Authors, in the structure of the modern European Literature. Though there are many good and fine things in the Psalms, said Politian, yet they appear more bright and sweet in Pindar and while composing his splendid "Oraisons Funèbres," Homer lay open before Bossuet, for, said he, I love to light my lamp at the Sun. These are a specimen of the too general neglect and degrading estimate of that volume, which Alphonso the 10th had read fourteen times, and which Chatham loved to peruse, în common with Barrow and Milton, to draw forth the hidden powers of his eloquence.

The Moderns then, according to our opinion, have experienced but partially, the advantages to be derived from the Literature of Ancient Greece. The fact is the more remark

able, because it came into Western Europe, and was taught by the learned who had fled from Constantinople, as the Literature of a living tongue; while the Latin Languages had then been dead, nearly one thousand years. Perhaps the restoration of Modern Greece to a rank among the States of Europe, may yet give to the Literature of their ancestors, that ascendancy in Western Europe, which has hitherto been the privilege of Latin Authors.

But, to what quarter shall we turn for the introduction of Sacred Literature as a branch of education, and for its eventual ascendancy as the most important in a literary point of view. I fear that we look in vain to the Academy, the College, the University. Their spirit has rarely been that of the Reformer, who loves to regenerate. It is rather that of the Antiquary, who seeks to abide by the ancient landmarks. Languages and Mathematics are their summum bonum of education, in the systems of our times as they were a thousand years since. But individual sentiment, social intercourse, religious influence can do much. To the private christian, to the minister of the Gospel, to religious and literary journals, and to theological Institutions, is allotted the noble and interesting duty of preparing the way for the triumph of Sacred Literature, for the ascendancy of the Scriptures, in all our schemes of education. Are any willing to deny that such ought to be the state of things, whether we look to Duty and Usefulness, or to Literature? That the time must come, when the fact will exist, cannot be doubted. That it will be accomplished, not by miracles, but by the instrument of human agency, is unquestionable. Who then is privileged to say, that he has neither lot nor part, in this momentous concern? No pious or educated man, no minister of the Gospel, or trustee of a school, no parent, guardian or instructor is exempt from the obligation of doing something in this matter. All of them are, in some sense or other, vested with more or less influence over education: and let them remember, that there is more, even of truth than of beauty, in the sentiment of the Arabians, the governors of the young preside over the stars of their youth.'

We have said that the Bible is the only original, pure and inexhaustible fountain of thought, the only storehouse of the elements of universal Literature, the only safe, unerring standard of taste, the richest, noblest specimen of the awful or the majestic, of the graceful or the beautiful. We have said

that Sacred Literature sits enthroned, amid the grandeur and serenity, the loveliness and purity of her own heaven of heavens, far above the idolatrous temples of Grecian and Roman genius. We have said that the exclusion of the Scriptures from all our systems of education, even in a literary point of view, is an astonishing, a melancholy fact. We gaze on the long line of the Institutions of Literature, through the centuries that are past, and missing their finest model, the Scriptures, we feel as the Roman, when he beheld not the statue of Brutus or Cassius in the funeral procession of their families, "praefulget, quia non cernitur." But like the Roman, we mourn as a calamity the banishment of its noblest ornament, from so illustrious an array of genius and learning. Let us pause then and inquire into the origin of this phenomenon.

Jerome tells us, that he was led to abandon the Classics by a vision, in which he was taken up to the judgment seat of Christ, and threatened, and even scourged for having taught them. The example of Jerome appears to have had no influence on the studies of his own day, or on those of succeeding ages. The monks were indeed innocent of the crime, laid to their charge by father Hardouin, of forging the Lyric poetry of Horace and the Eneid of Virgil; yet they cultivated the Latin writers, and Ovid was the favorite author of the dark ages. Religion was always more or less a department of education, but it was in the legends of saints, or in the forms of a narrow-minded, subtle, obscure divinity. It was not as a practical System, as enlightened Theology, or as accomplished Literature. The gulf of darkness, that lies between the sunset of Roman letters and the dawn of learning in Western Europe, may well therefore be overleaped at once. We come then to the age of the revival of letters.

1. The first cause for the absence of Sacred Literature is found in the fact, that during two hundred years, from the age of Petrarch to the age of Luther, one Church reigned over the whole of Western Europe, and the only spirit of investigation, which existed within it, was found in Scholastic Theology and Metaphysics. These ruled with imperial sway, and when to their influence we add the practical character of that Church, as rebuked and cast off forever by the Reformers, we are not surprised, that the Bible should have been the text-book neither of Duty and Usefulness, nor of Literature.

2. A second cause was the principle of the Catholic Church, which forbade the reading of the Scriptures by the laity. It is not a matter of much astonishment that such a laity, as this scheme inevitably produced, should have been not only alien to the spirit of the Bible, but altogether indifferent to its Literature.

3. We may assign as a third reason the fact, that the language of that country, in which the revival commenced, and first made a remarkable progress, was the offspring of the Latin tongue, and it seemed a natural, indeed, we may say, an inevitable course, to cultivate the Latin with a view to the improvement of the Italian. The same cause would lead to a similar result, in Spain and France, and even in England.

4. The circumstance, that none of the nations of Europe had any Literature of their own, and that Latin was the universal language, not only of the learned, but even of the Christian Church, throughout the whole of Western Europe, was a fourth cause. The absence of any works in their native languages created an inevitable dependence on the Latin writers; and the state of the vernacular tongues presented to the scholar no temptation to clothe his thoughts in such a dress. What motive could he have for adopting any other, than the Latin, since the learned only read? They were the only Public, for whom the scholar wrote. They understood him in Latin all over Europe; whilst a few only could have perused his writings, in Spanish or Italian, in French or in English. The People and the language of the People were as yet unknown to Literature. As therefore the vernacular dialects furnished no books on sacred literature, and no temptation to write them, and as the same was equally true of the Latin tongue, for the Fathers, like the Bible, were forbidden ground, we are not surprised at finding the classics predominant.

5. A fifth cause may be traced to the character and premature fate of Provenzal Literature. During the period of its glory, from the time of Raymond de Berenger, A. D. 1092, to the age of Raymond the 6th and 7th, A. D. 1222, the other dialects of Europe lay in a barbarous state. Had the Troubadour Literature been of a general, durable and various character, it would have done much towards the establishment of a corresponding Literature in all the neighboring countries. But it was exclusively a gay literature, as

its title, 'el gai saber,' 'la gaie science,' indicates. It produced scarcely any thing but poetry, and that of the lightest kind, the tale, the satire and amatory verse. It was the

child of love aad chivalry, and is it wonderful that it could not survive the age of knight-errantry? Its genius fled with the spirit of the crusades; the power that had sustained it, perished with the sovereignty of Provence: and the war against the Albigenses was equally the martyr-flame of Troubadour Literature, and of the pure, the constant faith of Languedoc and Provence. To such a quarter, we look then in vain, for any influence favorable to Sacred Literature.

6. We may discover another reason in the circumstances, under which the Greek emigrants resorted to Italy. They came, not as missionaries to teach Religion or as Christian scholars to teach Sacred Literature, but as refugees to teach Greek. They came from a degraded, superstitious Church, which cultivated and recommended Sacred Literature as little in the East, as the sister-church in the West. They had no motive to study it themselves, and none to induce them to teach it to others. Besides, they were in the land of the Inquisition, and had they ventured, like Galileo, to disturb the established order of things, they must have fled from Italy, like Bernardino Ochino, or have suffered, like the intrepid and eloquent Savonarola.

7. The fact, that the greater part of sacred Literature is to be found in the old Testament, may be stated as a farther cause, why it became not a part of education, on the revival of learning. The ignorance of Hebrew, of Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, and of the ancient manners and customs of the East, was universal and deplorable. Nor is it surprising that such should be the fact, during the two centuries preceding the Reformation, since Camerarius, the Phoenix of Germany, as late as the year 1550, was very imperfectly acquainted even with Hebrew.

S. We are constrained to assign as another, and a principal cause of the utter neglect of sacred Literature, the absence of a religious spirit among the founders and promoters of modern letters. What could not have been done in such a field, by the genius and accomplished learning of Petrarch and Boccaccio, of Dante, Machiavelli and Ariosto? What might we not have expected from the station, and talents, and taste of Vida, Caro and Sadolet, of Casa and Bembo; but all of them abandoned the pulpit to the monks :