From The Spectator.
HEATHENDOM.*

FIRST NOTICE.

a type, as it were, of the difficulties and per-
plexities which beset the men of the nine-
teenth century, and perceive in history noth-
ing but the struggle of the human soul
with "foes," whose "faces"
may now, in-
deed, be slightly "new," but who are in
their nature old. The eighteenth century
drew unconsciously even nearer to heathen-

LAS CASAS during a debate on the iniquity of subjecting the American Indians to toil and slavery was hard pressed by some monkish casuists, who pleaded in support of the right possessed by one race to enslave another the revered names of Plato and Aris-ism than does the nineteenth. The imagitotle. The philanthropist could not restrain his indignation at this line of argument, and wondered that Christian men could refer to the authority of writers who were themselves undoubtedly burning in the fires of hell. No one could impeach the Spaniard's orthodoxy, and his inference as to the condition of the two greatest philosophers who have enlightened the world was the most logical of deductions from the most undoubted premises of the narrow orthodoxy. His expressions, nevertheless, shocked the best feelings of the theologians of his own age, and are felt to need some sort of apology when recorded by his modern eulogists. He brought out in its plainest colors a contradiction of sentiment which subsists in the minds of almost all men, but of which most persons are little more than half conscious. Heathendom wears two different aspects. Clergymen in their pulpits dilate on the folly, the vice, and the ignorance which degraded the heathen world. The same men when they turn from a parish congregation to a class of University pupils adopt a different tone. In each line of Plato they find a foreshadowing of Christianity. Aristotle's name crushes their judgment by the weight of his reputation, for no long time has passed since Oxford lecturers hunted in the Stagyrite's works for arguments in favor of human corruption or of baptismal regeneration. In all this there is no hypocrisy. The same contradiction may be traced in the opinions entertained by different writers and by different ages concerning those times, of which we know at once so much and yet so little, before the triumph of Christianity divided history by a gulf which neither genius nor learning finds it easy to bridge over. Of recent years authors such as Mr. Kingsley discover in the circumstances and passions which influenced the Pagans of Alexandria

The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ. From the German of J. J. I. Döllinger. By the Rev. N. Darnell, M.A. 2 vols. Longman.

native mind attempted to recall the scenery which surrounded Epictetus or Tully, and in the whole phraseology and thoughts which marked the moralists of the day there are traces of heathen parentage. Even Butler shows as much sign of the influence exer cised over him by Epictetus as of the effect produced on him by the writings of St. Paul. Johnson's morality does not appear very dissimilar from the prudential ethics which may be supposed to have guided the conduct of Cato the Censor, and in the pages of the Spectator are embodied quotations from stoic philosophers, mingled with extracts apparently equally unknown to its readers from Solomon's Proverbs or from Job. A whole generation drew its moral sustenance from diluted renderings of Cicero's Offices, and when the eighteenth century terminated in the French Revolution, the men and women who aimed to reform the world were, one and all, like Madame Roland, imbued with the rhetoric and the principles of Plutarch. No one can venture either to disdain the influence of heathendom, or, on the other hand, to deny that, in spite of this influence which can be traced in the arts, the morals, and the religion of the Christian world, there does indeed exist a sharp contrast between the ages of pagan darkness and the time of Christian light. What students who cannot be contented by mere words which convey little impression demand is an investigation into the nature of heathendom which may bring forth both the lights and the shades of the ancient world, which, in other words, can show both why Plato and Cicero may still claim our reverence; and why, at the same time, it was a true and enormous step in the progress of humanity when the preaching of Galilean fishermen swept away the system which had nourished the patriotism of Pericles and the exalted virtues of Marcus Antoninus.

To give the results of such an examina

tion is the object of M. Döllinger's work. youth. Priests existed, but no organized He has attempted, to use his own words, body such as since the rise of Christianity "to represent the Paganism of the period has been known as the priesthood. Sacriprevious to our Lord with at least an effort at completeness, the sketch embracing the heathen religious system, heathen modes of thought and speculation, heathen philosophy, life, and manners as far as they were severally connected with the religion, were determined by it and reacted upon it in their turn." In a certain sense he has succeeded. In his book is contained a mass of information which nothing short of German learning and German industry could have brought together. Readers, if they find in it none of those flashes of insight by which Hegel occasionally throws a gleam of light over the whole tendencies of an era, and none of those humorous touches in which Mommsen explains the feelings of the ancient world through analogies drawn from modern life, are still rewarded by obtaining a knowledge of facts which the lifetime of an ordinary individual would scarcely suffice to collect. M. Döllinger has written a book which all students of ancient religions will be compelled to consult: Many of his opinions and conclusions deserve criticism, but an author of his learning and research claims to have his opinions clearly stated before they are made the subject either for eulogy

or censure.

The history of Paganism divides itself into two great periods, which, though their limits cannot be very accurately drawn, are distinguished from each other by very clearly defined characteristics. Paganism, in its earlier stage, may be described as natural heathenism. Whilst the world was yet divided into numerous states, each country held to its separate gods and its different modes of worship, and the idols of Greece or Egypt were as little connected with one another or with the gods of Rome as were the citizens who listened to the speeches of Pericles with the Romans who, about the same period, were occupied in remodelling the laws of their city. Of course there were, during this condition of the world, infinite differences between the religious usages of various races. Stih certain features were common to all the heathen institutions of at least the western world during the first stage of pagan development. Unconsciousness was the main trait of heathendom during its

fices were universal; but though the idea of expiation was not entirely foreign to them, and is even prominent in those human offerings which, according to M. Döllinger, were more frequent than is ordinarily supposed, they were rather occasions for festivity than means of atonement, and in many cases the popular notion obviously was that the sacrifice was a feast wherein gods and men each took a part. Oracles again, or auguries, were general; but little moral significance attached to the character of a prophet, and generally ethics and religion occupied, as it were, distinct spheres. Even when moral philosophy arose, the opposition between its teachings and the doctrines of the received creeds was but indistinctly recognized. The priests of the temple, since their influence did not depend upon the support of moral doctrines, were little inclined to condemn ethical speculations as heresy. Socrates might have easily escaped death; and it is typical of the slight opposition of his views to the prevailing religion that his last injunction was to pay a sacrifice to Esculapius.

Changes in the condition of the world, the progress of speculation, and, above all, the spread of the Roman empire, wrought a gradual revolution in the whole condition of the heathen religious world. Philosophy inevitably encroached upon the domain of religion. The teachers of the Porch or of the Garden were far inferior in intellectual power to Plato or Aristotle; but the questions which occupied their minds were inquiries far more akin to the problems which have perplexed and harassed modern metaphysicians and moralists than were the intellectual enigmas proposed for solution in the groves of the Academy. The nature of free will, the power of Providence, the existence of God, the relation of man to God, the respect due from philosophers to the religion of the people, were all topics which agitated the minds of men after the fall of Grecian freedom and before the Roman Republic gave place to the empire. As centuries rolled on Paganism itself was so revolutionized that the heathenism which was overthrown by Christianity was essentially distinct from the religion of either Greece or

Rome, in the days of their youth and vigor. into cunning, and the countrymen of Socrates and Thucydides became the basest of sycophants to Roman masters. Rome herself fell nearly as low as the races she had conquered. Bravery degenerated into brutality, and combats of gladiators occupied citizens who had ceased to do battle for the

The gods of all nations had met and mingled at the Capitol; Isis and Anubis claimed more worshippers at Rome than the Capitolean Jupiter. Strange rites of expiation, the Taurobolium and the Criobolium, were invented to appease the growing sense of human guilt and misery. Soothsayers, as-state. Slavery ate up the vitals of the peotronomers, and magicians, swarmed in every corner of the empire; and whilst philosophy itself became mixed up with Theurgy, tales abounded of the gods appearing once more to their worshippers. The unconsciousness and the gayety of the pagan world had deserted it and left but a sense of sin without knowledge of any certain means of atonement, and a desire for happiness without the hope either of liberty in this world or of bliss in another.

M. Döllinger concludes his account of heathendom with an estimate of the moral results flowing from Pagan life and institutions. The picture he draws is a dark one. All the intellect of Greece gradually sank

ple, and the grossest immorality, whilst it degraded both men and women, made marriage an intolerable burden, and the increase of the population an impossibility. On the 19th of December, B.C. 69, the Roman capital was consumed by fire, kindled by Roman hands. When, ten months later, the Temple at Jerusalem was also reduced to ashes, if Romans and Jews of the first century saw but a spark of the hatred of heaven to man, modern writers may be pardoned for perceiving the sign, as it were, that the days of heathenism were numbered, and "that ground was to be cleared for the worship of God in spirit and in truth.”

THE MONOGRAM.-The monogram on the leading private firms. A few days ago, some sacred standard of Constantine became for a of the most eminent ship-builders of Liverpool long time conspicuous on Christian monuments waited on Mr. Turner with a desire of nego in the East and West, and is now carved on which they are about to construct for the purtiating permission to adopt his principle in ships most of the sepulchral tablets of modern Italy. The single cupola Yet there is a mystery about what it really poses of the American war. means, without a pretence of anything miracu- to be fitted on the deck of Mr. Turner's new lous as to the way in which it came to be used. ship will require no turn-table or other machinIt is doubtful whether any one besides the Em-ery, and will contain twenty-six guns, capable peror himself can have known whether he took of being fired at any required point or deflecits upper part to represent the Latin letter P, or of the gunners. It is two hundred and thirty tion, with sufficient space for the free circulation the Greek one for R. The great comparative feet in length, ten feet in depth, and fifty feet in prominence of the said upper part on early breadth. The armor-proof plates will be applied monuments, joined to Constantine's ignorance of Greek, inclines us to the former opinion, and by a patent invention of Mr. Turner, requir perhaps Eusebius as an enthusiastic Oriental ing neither grooves nor tongues, and will be gave rise to the latter. There is some evidence removable singly in case of fracture or damage, that the Roman Emperor Probus brought the and also easily replaced. The Board of Admimonogram, or something like it, from Egypt in ralty, who inspected the model on their visit to the third century. His name and virtues per- Turner to furnish specifications of his method the dockyard a few days ago, have called on Mr. haps suggested the appropriation of a sign for their consideration. which had long before been attached to repre- Prince Adalbert, Admiral of the Prussian fleet, His royal highness sentations of the more popular members of the has also ordered draughts of the model to be Ptolemaic dynasty.-Once a Week.

transmitted to him for the service of his own country. The ship to be built after Mr. Turner's design will carry 8,700 displacement burden, and will be a most formidable ram, having a powerful weapon of eight feet in length pro

SHIP-MAKING IN ENGLAND FOR THE REB-jecting three feet under the water-line. PreELS.-The model of the fixed cupola and armor-plated ship, invented by Mr. Turner, master shipwright of Woolwich dockyard, has been inspected and approved by numbers of the

cautions are adopted to have her rudder, sternpost, and propeller thoroughly immersed, and, consequently, out of the reach of damage from without.-Liverpool Times.

ALONG the sandy shores at low water may Though the cells appear at first sight to be seen in the summer months numbers of be disposed almost at random, a closer inround, flattish, gelatinous-looking bodies, vestigation will show that a regular arrangescientifically called Medusa, going popularly ment prevails among them, and that they by the expressive though scarcely euphemious can all be referred to a legitimate organizatitles of slobs, slobbers, stingers, and stang- tion. So invariably is this the case, that the ers, and called jelly fishes by the inland pub- shape and order of these cells afford valuable lic, though the creatures are not fishes at all, characteristics in the classification of these and have no jelly in their composition. strange beings.

1

rents, but withal maintaining their position | animal that had been thrown overboard, and by the exertion of their will. swam away from it, not being anxious to come in contact with so unpleasant a substance.