with an appearance which can be called by no other name than venerable. Moreover, it carries us deep into the historical peculiarities of the country. The ruins we now see are of the most diverse ages; Saracenic, Crusading, Roman, Grecian, Jewish, extending perhaps even to the old Canaanitish remains, before the arrival of Joshua. This variety, this accumulation of destruction, is the natural result of the position which has made Palestine for so many ages the thoroughfare and prize of the world. And although we now see this aspect brought out in a fuller light than ever before, yet, as far back as the history and language of Palestine reach, it was familiar to the inhabitants of the country. In the rich local vocabulary of the Hebrew language, the words for sites of ruined cities occupy a remarkable place. Four separate designations are used for the several stages of decay or of destruction, which were to be seen even during the first vigour of the Israelite conquest and monarchy. There was the rude "cairn," or pile of stones, roughly rolled together. There was the mound or heap of ruin, which, like the Monte Testaccio at Rome, was composed of the rubbish and débris of a fallen city. There were the forsaken villages, such as those in the Hurân, when "the cities were wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man,"- forsaken, and not a man to dwell therein.' There are lastly true ruins, such as those to which we give the name -buildings standing, yet shattered, like those of Baalbec or Palmyra. -A. P. STANLEY.

THE DEATH OF MOSES.

LED by his God, on Pisgah's height,
The pilgrim-prophet stood-

When first fair Canaan blessed his sight,

And Jordan's crystal flood.

Behind him lay the desert ground

His weary feet had trod;

While Israel's host had camped around,

Still guarded by their God.

With joy the aged Moses smiled

On all his wanderings past,

While thus he poured his accents mild
Upon the mountain-blast:

Alone he bade the world farewell,

To God his spirit fled.

Now, to your tents, O Israel,

And mourn your prophet dead! JESSIE G. M'CARTER.

SOCRATES.

(B.C. 468.-399.)

AUTHORS describe the private life and habits of Socrates, his contented poverty, justice, temperance, in the largest sense of the word, and self-sufficing independence of character. On most of these points, too, Aristophanes and the other comic writers, so far as their testimony counts for anything, appear as confirmatory witnesses; for they abound in jests on the coarse fare, shabby and scanty clothing, bare feet and pale face, poor and joyless life of Socrates. Of the circumstances of his life we are almost totally ignorant. He served as an hoplite in Potidæa, at Delium, and Amphipolis, with credit, apparently, in all, though exaggerated encomiums on the part of his friends provoked an equally exaggerated scepticism on the part of Athenæus and others. He seems never to have filled any political office until the year B.C. 406, in which the battle of Arginusæ occurred, in which year he was member of the Senate of Five Hundred, and one of the prytanes of that memorable day, when the proposition of Kallixenus against the six generals was submitted to the public assembly. That during his long life he strictly obeyed the laws, is proved by the fact that none of his numerous enemies ever arraigned him before a court of justice; that he discharged all the duties of an upright man, and a brave as well as a pious citizen, may also be confidently asserted. His friends lay especial stress upon his piety, that is, upon his exact discharge of all the religious duties considered as incumbent upon an Athenian.

At what time Socrates relinquished his profession as a statuary we do not know, but it is certain that all the middle and later part of his life, at least, was devoted exclusively to the self-imposed task of teaching, excluding all other business, public or private, and to the neglect of all means of fortune. We can hardly avoid speaking of him as a teacher, though he himself disclaimed the appellation; his practice was to talk, or converse, or "to prattle without end," if we translate the derisory word by which the enemies of philosophy described dialectic conversation. Early in the morning he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools where youths were receiving instruction. He was to be seen in the

market-place at the time when it was most crowded, among the the booths and tables where goods were exposed for sale. His whole day was usually spent in this manner. He talked with any one, young or old, rich or poor, who sought to address him, and in the hearing of all who chose to stand by. Not only he never either asked or received any reward, but he made no distinction of persons, never withheld his conversation from any one, and talked upon the same general topics to all.

This extreme publicity of life and conversation was one, among the characteristics of Socrates, distinguishing him from all teachers, both before and after him. Next was his persua sion of a special religious mission, restraints, impulses, and communications sent to him by the gods. Taking the belief in such natural intervention generally, it was, indeed, no way peculiar to Socrates; it was that ordinary faith of the ancient world, in so much that the attempts to resolve phenomena into general laws were looked upon with a certain disapprobation, as indirectly setting it aside. He had been accustomed to hear, even from his childhood, a divine voice, interfering at moments when he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him very frequently, not merely on great, but even on small, occasions, intercepting what he was about to do or to say. Though later writers speak of this as the demon or genius of Socrates, he himself does not personify it, but treats it merely as "a divine sign, a prophetic or supernatural voice." He was accustomed not only to obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and his enemies. It had always for. bidden him to enter upon public life; it forbade him, while the indictment was hanging over him, to take any thought for a prepared defence; and so completely did he march with a consciousness of this bridle in his mouth, that when he felt no check, he assumed that the turning he was about to take was the right one. Though his persuasion on the subject was perfectly sincere, and his obedience constant, yet he never dwelt upon it himself as anything grand or awful, or entitling him to peculiar deference, but spoke of it often in his peculiar strain of familiar playfulness.

Such was the demon or genius of Socrates, as described by himself, and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues-a

voice always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively on his own personal conduct. That which Plutarch, and other admirers of Socrates, conceived as a demon, or intermediate being between gods and men, was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian Church as a devil, by Le Clerc as one of the fallen àngels, by some other modern commentators as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Socrates himself. Without presuming to determine the question raised in the former hypothesis, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the conviction of Socrates on the point was quite sincere. But though this peculiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively to him, there were also other ways in which he believed himself to have received the special mandates of the gods; not simply checking him, but spurring him on, directing and peremptorily exacting from him a positive course of proceeding. Such distinct mission had been imposed upon him by dreams, by oracular intimations, and by every other means which the gods employed for signifying their special will.

To hear of any man, especially of so illustrious a man, being condemned to death on such accusations as those of heresy and alleged corruption of youth, inspires, at the present day, a senti ment of indignant reprobation, the force of which I have no desire to enfeeble. The fact stands eternally recorded as one among the thousand misdeeds of intolerance, religious and political. But since, amid this catalogue, each item has its own peculiar character, grave or light, we are bound to consider at what point of the scale the condemnation of Socrates is to be placed, and what inference it justifies in regard to the character of the Athenians. If we examine the circumstances of the case, we will find them all extenuating, and so powerful, indeed, as to reduce such inferences to their minimum, consistent with the general class to which the inference belongs. Though the mischievous principle of intolerance cannot be denied, yet ail the circumstances show that principle was neither irritable nor predominant in the Athenian bosom,-that even a large body of collateral antipathies did not readily call it forth against any individual,—that the more liberal and generous dispositions, which deadened its malignity, were of steady efficacy, not easily overborne ; and that the condemnation ought to count as one of the least gloomy items in an essentially gloomy catalogue.

-GROTE.