love which casts out fear. It is not a fault of the prevalent type of feeling that it is too cheerful and hopeful, or that it reflects too much of the light of heaven. Awe and reverence, love and hope, are not antagonistic to each other, and must all spring from a symmetrical apprehension of the character of God.

Any attempt to heighten devotional feeling by an immediate action upon the emotions themselves, must of course, prove a failure. This would be but a reproduction of the condition of things which in part constitutes the difficulty. The thing needed is to get out of ourselves, away from this self-conscious habit of watching and shaping religious feeling. The feeling must come from a contemplation of the objects adapted; to move the hearts of men if this is not effective, there is no remedy. A resort to elaborate and imposing forms of worship cannot afford relief. Even if such forms might possibly be the natural expression of feeling, yet when the feeling is wanting, they are an impertinence and an offence. The rattling skeleton of worship, when life and soul are wanting, cannot be pleasing to God or helpful to man. It seems probable, indeed, that the complicated movements of ritualism, the earlier and the recent, did not originate in the simple sentiment of worship, but in the grave misapprehension that the movements themselves were in some way pleasing to God. It is inconceivable that religious feeling itself should take on such forms.

Neither can outward activity in works of charity and religious labor be made to take the place of the activity and outgoing of soul which constitute true worship. Not that outward activity is in any sense opposed to the earnestness of soul which belongs to the true spiritual life. There is efficiency in the outward labor, when it is an expression of the feelings and affections which should prompt it. But religious labor prosecuted as a work required by God or due to man, will no more add power to our religion than the internal, subjective struggles which spring from a bewildered,

introverted experience. They both fall below the plane of a true Christian life.

The great want of man, now, as in all time, is the direct apprehension of God, the acceptance of the simple facts of religion. There is enough in these facts to constitute a perennial fountain of religious feeling. The problem is, to give these facts such a place in the hearts of men that they shall do their natural work.

Is there not opportunity and occasion to recall the simplicity and directness of the Christian faith? to secure to Christian experience more of the naturalness and reasonableness which characterize the relation of the soul to God? to infuse into our religious instruction and literature more of God and less of man, or to place these in more direct relations to each other, so that our religious system shall be religion, rather than philosophy; a living power, rather than a lifeless thought? Thus the religious affections shall be ast simple and direct as the social, and worship as obvious a want as the communion of man with his fellow man.

Towards the establishment of such relations we cannot suppose that God himself will be indifferent. Such a lifting up of the soul to him on the part of his people will find a response in a divine baptism of love and power; and thus the promised glory of the latter days shall be realized, when "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the tops of the mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it."

ARTICLE VI.

CICERO, AND REMARKS ON THE CICERONIAN STYLE.

BY THE LATE GEORGE SHEPARD, PROFESSOR IN BANGOR THEOLOGICAL

SEMINARY.

WE come, in the present lecture, to look at the eloquence of the great Roman orator and the class of speakers who bear similar characteristics.

For the sake of definiteness and despatch we will turn to one of his orations and describe, as briefly as practicable, both its argument and its rhetoric. I select for this purpose the orator's plea for Milo; all considering it one of the best specimens (some the best) of skilful oratorical structure which Cicero has furnished us.

In order to appreciate the argument in the case, it is necessary to survey some of the principal facts. The main fact is, that Milo on his way to Lanuvium, and Clodius returning to Rome, met with their respective trains at Bovillae, and the latter was slain by the former. Clodius is represented as a vile and profligate character, a contemner of the gods, and a scourge to the community. He became the enemy of Cicero, and procured his banishment, because the orator testified against him when on trial for a most flagrant offence, and otherwise opposed him in his flagitious designs. Milo, as the champion of Cicero, and the most daring and efficient of the tribunes in bringing about his restoration, came in for a share of Clodius's malignant hatred.

In the year of Rome 701, Milo was a candidate for the consulship against two influential competitors; and at the same time Clodius was a candidate for the pretorship. The friends of Milo were exerting themselves to the utmost to procure, and those of Clodius to resist, his election. While

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everything was working advantageously for Milo, and the prospect of his election was very fair, all was suddenly clouded by that disastrous meeting in the Appian Way. Here Clodius, on horse-back, attended by three companions and thirty servants armed, and Milo, with his wife and a female companion and a company of gladiators, came together, and in the fatal affray which followed Clodius was slain. His body was left in the road, where it fell, till found by a senator named Sextius Tedius, who took it to Rome, covered with blood and wounds, and thus exposed it to the populace. the midst of the factions and tumults that ensued, Cneus Pompey was created sole consul, and immediately published three laws, in one of which he specially noticed the circumstances of Clodius's death. Under these Milo was impeached de Vi, de Ambitu, and de Sodalitiis before a tribunal constituted of men of distinguished abilities and integrity, and headed by an extraordinary president. Pompey was also present, with a strong body of troops, to prevent violence from either side. Cicero conducted the defence alone, and not at the time with his usual ability, being disconcerted, when he commenced, by the rude clamor of the Clodian faction. The oration or plea we have is not so much what he did say as what he meant to say. It was afterward written out by the orator, and then received all the beauty and force his masterly hand could give it. The result of the trial was the condemnation and banishment of Milo; only thirteen of the tribunal being for acquital and thirty-eight for conviction. It is very manifest that Cicero had a difficult cause to manage, inasmuch as the main facts were against him. The meeting between Milo and Clodius was probably accidental and the slaying a sudden act of revenge. It could not have been in selfdefense because Milo was completely master of the field, his adversary having fled to a house, and been dragged out thence to be slain. It was a rash act; probably regretted soon after it was done. Another difficulty arose from the attitude and power of Pompey, who while he was heartily glad that Clodius was thus despatched, determined to take advantage

of the occurrence to put Milo, whose influence he dreaded, also out of the way.

Let us turn now to the oration, and see its structure and argument, and how the orator undertook to dispose of the difficulties in the case. We find in the oration the main parts of a judicial address, or plea, in due order, viz. exordium, proposition, narration, confirmation, peroration. The object of the exordium is to conciliate the good will of the judges, bespeak their attention, and render them favorable to his cause. He makes an apology for the agitation he manifested; pays a compliment to Pompey whose presence greatly refreshes him; intimates to the soldiers and the people that their own dear interests were involved in the fate of Milo. He alludes to the crimes and meditated outrages of the Clodian faction; touches upon the misfortunes of his client, who had failed of the honors just within his grasp, and was now agitated with fear of exile. The exordium ended, he takes his ground of defense. He was advised by some to take this ground: namely, to acknowledge the fact and the intention. We did kill Clodius, and we meant to, and we did it for the public good. But this ground he deemed too bold to be politic. As the other side took the ground that Milo waylaid Clodius, Cicero decided to meet them by confessing the fact that Milo killed Clodius and maintaining that he did it in self-defence, as Clodius was the assailant. This he promises to make clear as the light of day. But before proceeding to the argument, he disposes of a prejudice: namely, that it is never right to take the life of a fellow-man except through the forms of law. He shows that it is right in certain circumstances. He proves the right both from the law of nature and from written laws. Two other false impressions he removes: namely, that Milo had been condemned by the senate, and virtually by Pompey. Having disposed of these prejudgments, the orator proceeds to the main proposition that Clodius waylaid Milo. He has an advantage in taking this ground, by the concession on the other side that one or the other did waylay. This