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And while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

THERE are at this moment more than six hundred millions of the human race in the appalling situation of the men whom the apostle describes as "without Christ in the world :" and the question is, with what feelings and what purposes a christian would survey this vast and wretched portion of the family of man. Behold St. Paul at Athens. Think of the matchless splendour which blazed upon his view, as he rolled his eye round the enchanting panorama that encircled the hill of Mars. On the one hand, as he stood upon the summit of the rock, beneath the canopy of heaven, was spread a glorious prospect of mountains, islands, seas and skies; on the other, quite within his view was the plain of Marathon, where the wrecks of former generations, and the tombs of departed heroes, mingled together in silent desolation. Behind him towered the lofty Acropolis, crowned with the pride of Grecian architecture.-There, in the zenith of their splendour and the perfection of their beauty, stood those peerless temples, the very fragments of which are viewed by modern travellers with an idolatry almost equal to that which reared them. Stretched along the plain below him, and reclining her head on the slope of the neighbouring hills, was Athens, mother of the arts and sciences, with her noble offspring sporting by her side. The Porch, the Lyceum, and the Grove, with the stations of departed sages, and the forms of their living disciples, were all presented to the apostle's eye.

What mind, possessing the slightest pretensions to classic taste, can think of his situation amid such sublime and captivating scenery, without a momentary rapture. Yet there, even there, did this accomplished scholar stand as insensible to all this grandeur, as if nothing was before him but the treeless, turfless desert. Absorbed in the holy attractions of his mind, he saw no charms, felt no fascinations; but, on the contrary, was pierced with the most poignant distress; and what was the cause? "He saw the city wholly given to idolatry." To him it presented nothing but a magnificent mausoleum, decorated, it is true, with the richest productions of the sculptor and the architect, but still where the souls of men lay dead in trespasses and sins; while the dim light of philosophy that still glimmered in the schools, appeared but as the lamp of the sepulchre, shedding its pale and sickly ray around these gorgeous chambers of death.

What must have been his indignant grief at the dishonour done by idolatry to God; what his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind; what his abhorrence of human impiety; and what his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments of pagan pomp and superstition had not the smallest possible effect in turning away his view from the delusion that raised them, or the misery which succeeded them.

And if Paul could revisit some modern cities, would he not have reason for a deeper grief, in a prevailing protestant idolatry?

Worship to God alone belongs,

Worship to him alone we give ;
His be our hearts, and his our songs,
And to his glory we would live.

PATRIOTISM.

JULY 4.

Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee?

193

THE circumstances mentioned as favourable to great moral and religious eminence in this country, are the following.-First, the youth of our institutions. We may begin to build upon the experience of former ages and older countries, with all the spirit and all the privileges of a new experiment. Every man should feel bound to do his share towards the establishment of those institutions which will exert a natural influence over the moral and social character of coming generations.-Second, the equal distribution of the means of support. No man here is condemned, by the circumstances of his birth, to helpless want, or to shameless mendicity. The weight of opulent oppression, so dreadful in other countries, is here not felt. Reduce any class of men to inevitable want and hopeless depression, and all the powers of their minds are bent to the contrivances of petty fraud, or the accomplishment of more desperate crimes. Our country well rewards the steady and temperate labourer.— Third, the comparative thinness of our population. We are no where grouped like the inhabitants of older countries, in large masses, but diffused over a prodigious breadth of soil. We have therefore less to fear from the corruption of an overgrown metropolis.-Fourth, the agricultural character of a majority of our citizens. No situation in life is so favourable to established habits of virtue, and to powerful sentiments of devotion, as a residence in the country and rural occupations. The husbandman feels sensibly his immediate dependence on God. His duties teach him purity and simplicity of moral sentiment.-Fifth, our commercial character. This makes learning a common cause. Commerce provides facilities of intellectual communication between the remotest regions; and not a new thought starts up in the mind of any foreign philosopher, but it darts, like lightning, across the Alantic, and soon becomes a part of our common stock of knowledge.-Sixth, our remoteness from the wars and crimes of older countries. A wide ocean separates us from the tumults, oppression, and revolutions of Europe. May we long remain spectators only of these distant evils.

Seventh, our civil and religious liberty. Republican institutions stand supported by learning and virtue. Without these, liberty becomes a mere name. The love of religious liberty is a stronger sentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil and political freedom. If the hand of power is laid upon it to crush it, this seems only to augment its force and elasticity, and to cause its reaction to be more formidable, and persevering. In this country no establishment canonizes errour, and no christian opinions incapacitate for office. All are free and all are equal.-Growing out of our civil and religious liberty, is, the perfect toleration and equal competition of religious opinions. Here is unmixed religious freedom; and it must be favourable to unshackled inquiry, and progressive truth. We can think as we please and speak what we think. Truth and errour are made to grapple in fair and open conflict.—If ever the great religious questions are to be settled they must be settled here.

Let us convince the world by our christian character, that order, piety, charity, mental cultivation, religious liberty and religious sentiments, can co-exist with a state of permanent peace and unexampled prosperity.

194

DUTIES OF RULERS.

JULY 5.

For he is the minister of God to thee for good.

THE objects of civil government are, the safety, prosperity and happiness of the people. The duty of the civil ruler is, to see that these objects are attained. If he gives himself rest before these are promoted to the utmost, he is a traitor to his trust. If his character has given him his station, his influence is vast. His opinions become the model for others, and his example can either strengthen or shake their most important principles.

One great duty of the ruler is, to encourage learning. Whatever age or country we survey, we find that the character and virtue of the people are in proportion to the facility of their instruction. Learning has raised them from savages into men, from slaves into citizens, and from all the grossness of sensual existence, to the dignified enjoyments of cultivated being. The civil ruler is to feel these truths, and exercise all his ingenuity in disseminating knowledge and rewarding improvement

Another great duty is, to encourage industry and temperance. Idleness and intemperance have thrown a blight over the fairest prospects. They cleave to our land like an interminable leprosy. As vices, they have a giant's strength. We can bear pestilence and famine, because they may be short in duration, but we almost despair, when we gaze on the triumphant progress of intemperance and idleness. Just so far as these sins are laying waste a region, just so imperious are the claims of public good upon the civil ruler to stay the swift mischief. Let him open sources of industry, and send those forth to honest labour, whom otherwise he will be compelled to send to the dungeon or the prison. He can cherish the domestic as well as civil virtues; and by a well adjusted patronage, he can bring the whole female sex, to become his allies.

The last great duty which we can mention, is, the promotion of religion. Religion is the crowning glory of the human soul. our resemblance to God. It is peculiarly needful in the lower classes. It is their only science, their spring of duty, the mighty compensation for all their toils and deprivations. This masterspring of human happiness, will be constantly effected by the recommendations and example of the civil ruler. Known vice in a ruler, is cruelty, the deepest cruelty, to his people. Looking to him for a tribute to that religion on which all their hopes are built, he may by his infidelity, his carelessness, his levity and his vice, throw doubts over consolatory truths, and dim the hope which irradiates that grave where the weary long to be at rest. Double wo awaits that man who uses his wealth, talents or power, to take from contentment its serenity, from purity its value, or from religion its obligations. The civil ruler has a better right to set fire to the capitol, than to spread moral ruin and death by his contageous vice

May God in his mercy grant, that our favoured land, may have rulers, who shall spread the light of knowledge among our rising youth, who shall awaken a spirit of industry and temperance in active manhood; and become leaders of their people in the way of righteousness. Then may we exclaim with a new emphasis; Happy art thou, O Israel, who is like unto thee?

EPITOME OF CHURCH HISTORY.

JULY 6.

195

But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

A better description could not be given of the rise and progress of the Christian Church, than that which is presented in this prophetic allegory. In illustration of which, I shall attempt in the following pages, a rapid sketch of the history of Christianity, from the time in which the good seed was sown by our Saviour and his apostles-as it is recorded in the New Testament-to the period when the tares had sprung up so abundantly, as nearly to choke the good seed; but were afterwards, by the zeal, of pious men, and the overruling care of divine Providence, in part subdued ; though, for inscrutable reasons, not entirely extirpated: nor, perhaps is this to be expected till the time of harvest shall be fully come.

Should it be alledged, that the retrospect can be little edifying; as it is rather public vices than private virtues, which history in general exhibits; and that a darker page cannot be found than that of the church; let it be considered, that historical records may be useful either as examples to instruct and influence, or as warnings to deter. To men, nothing is to be accounted foreign or indifferent, that is human, or inhuman: to Christians, nothing that is christian; nor, by parity of reason, anti-christian.

There is an important moral-there are momentous conclusions— to be drawn, from the mass of human follies, human passions, human crimes, and human miseries, with which Ecclesiastical History abounds. To these conclusions, I wish to arrive by the shortest passage, through scenes that need not be dwelt upon, but only looked at, in order to be distinctly apprehended and remembered.

No sooner "did the blade spring up and bring forth fruit, than appeared the tares also." The growth of corruption was early : yet the fruitfulness of the seed, sown by our Saviour and his apostles, was apparent; and hence sprang up among the primitive disciples, such fruits of innocence, charity and piety, as gained the favour of all beholders, and filled their own hearts with peace and gladness. They dwelt in harmony together-a holy fraternity employed in offices of love and devotion; ripening apace for heavenly happiness.

What can, even in imagination, be conceived more blessed-had not divisions from within, and persecutions from without, so soon broke in upon this serene, auspicious dawn of truth and goodness!

The chief causes of disturbance in the apostolic age, were, the rancour of the unconverted Jews, never to be appeased or satiated; and the pride and bigotry of the Jewish Christians. These were the beginning of sorrows. The first theological controversy, which disquieted the infant church, is related in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. But this was not to be compared with the disputes of succeeding ages; when power was combined with zeal, and temporal motives were added to spiritual.

It may be seen by the corruptions of christianity, that, our Saviour did not intend his religion should be united with the kingdoms of this world. Its connexion with politics has ever been its banc. Like the iron and clay in Nebuchadnezzar's image, the two may cleave, but they will not incorporate.

196

EPITOME OF CHURCH HISTORY.

JULY 7.

But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

For a while, indeed, the rage of the Jews was checked, by the moderation and liberality of their masters, the Romans; who allowed every diversity of religious sect, throughout their immense dominions to enjoy unmolested freedom of opinion and freedom of worship. When, however, it became manifest that christianity disclaimed the whole of that splendid and costly apparatus of images, altars and sacrifices, which was so extremely gainful to the priests, as well as dazzling to the multitude; an alarm was excited among those who saw their emoluments daily declining, and their craft sinking into contempt, that probably paved the way to Nero's persecution,--the ostensible cause of which, however, was the burning of the city of Rome; supposed to be done, in the wantonness of pride and cruelty, by order of the emperour and afterwards, in order to remove the odium of a crime so enormous, ascribed, with singular atrocity, to the most peaceable and virtuous-though unjustly hated and despised sect-in the empire: on which pretencegreat numbers of the innocent christians are said to have been clothed in combustible garments, and exposed, by night, as blazing torches, to illumine the gardens of the emperour; who amused himself by driving his chariot round these horrid spectacles. To these barbarous punishments, allusions are made by the Roman poets and historians.

This persecution expired with the life of the monster who ordained it but was revived from time to time, under his successors, for the three first centuries. The inveterate malice of the Jews, the bigotry of the pagan populace, and the interests of those who were enriched by the popular superstition, prevailed over the more moderate counsels of the emperours, who, in general, were averse to persecution. Trajan forbade all search after those suspected of being christians; and all anonymous accusations: but if any were formally accused and legally convicted, they were, by his order, to suffer death. Adrian, more wisely and equitably enacted, that no christian should be condemned, unless convicted of some civil offence which decree subsisting under succeeding emperours, the enemies of christianity changed their mode of attack; and many of the guiltless followers of Christ fell under the charges of fictitious crimes. They were artfully represented as atheists, on account of their renouncing the worship of the pagan divinities: magicians, from the wonderful works ascribed to their founders: self murderers, from the constancy and cheerfulness with which they sacrificed their lives for their religion: man haters, because they no longer frequented the feasts and revels of superstition and haters of the light, because they were compelled, through the intolerance of their enemies, to hold their assemblies in the hours of darkness.

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Whose blood does not run cold within him, at the recital of these heart rending scenes! It seems as if ingenuity had utterly exhausted itself in devising plans for the torture of this little band of believers. Talents and influence, prejudice and zeal, the pride of philosophy, the obstinacy of religious prepossessions, and all the dire confederacy of despotisin, were placed in array against the infant cause of christianity.

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