success of the otherwise laudable efforts of the Christian world to win the nations to Christ. Such a practice renders it impossible to give to the world a just exhibition of Christianity. Such appendages to Christianity, added by human wisdom or tradition, must inevitably undermine and destroy the fabric which they propose to raise. Until Christianity is disencumbered, in its teachers, of the prepossessions and prejudices of education, and emancipated from the blinding and bewildering influence of unscriptural creeds, of councils, and of great names, and the precepts of Jesus and apostolic example are allowed to rise above them all in carrying out the practical parts of Christianity, there can never be a just exhibition of it before the world,-such an exhibition as shall render it permanent, and make it successful in its triumphs over idolatry, superstition and spiritual death. There is nothing so high and commanding in the universe, for the Christian teacher, as the authority of Jesus and of his apostles. We may try to legislate for him, but the laws we make will not stand. When we use the best possible methods to interpret the laws he has promulged, and the records of the official conduct of his apostles, and yield them an implicit, child-like obedience, neither the sword nor the faggot can hinder the progress of Christianity, or demolish the fabric we raise.

But if, in our weakness, we annul or add to, or attempt to supply what to us seems a deficiency in the laws of Christ, and the form and ordinances of his house, we shall appear as strangely unwise to those who come after us as the philosophers and astronomers of the present age would appear to us, should they attempt to form a new code of laws to govern the sun in its orbit, so as more perfectly to equalize its light and heat, and adjust it to the convenience of the inhabitants of the earth. They might do this, and injure none but themselves. If we change, or disannul, or add to the laws of Christ, we not only dishonor ourselves, but we inflict an injury on the cause we profess to love, and hinder its benign influence from reaching the souls now ready to perish.

The inference which we draw from these facts is, that the great object we should seek to attain at the present moment is a deeper experience of the power of doctrinal truth on the hearts of the teachers of Christianity. If

we would see the tide of the divine benevolence rolled on, and the chief hindrances to the more rapid triumphs of Christianity removed out of the way, there must be, in its teachers, a greater subjugation of the soul to its deep and powerful doctrines.

There must be less adoration of human names and achievements, and more of the name of Jesus and his truth. We will never undervalue or disparage human learning. But neither will we exalt it above the plain and simple, yet comprehensive doctrines of Christianity. While we read the writings of men distinguished for their genius, research and learning, we must keep our eye fixed on the infinite purity and glory of the doctrines which God has revealed as the only foundation of our hope. The more childlike our disposition is respecting them, the more implicit our subjection to them, the clearer will be our discernment of their meaning. If we are willing to be in subjection to Christ and his truth, we shall know of the doctrine.

If this deep experience of the love of God and of all the doctrines standing in connection with it, is attained by the teachers and propagators of Christianity, the results will be most happy. We shall then not fear to study or to preach the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel. We shall preach them experimentally. Overwhelmed ourselves with a sense of the divine love, we can, by the grace of God, impress the minds of others. Those whom we instruct will have a kind of knowledge which will keep the heart and direct the life. We shall have a keener moral sensibility, and a clearer discernment of all the truths which relate to the practical parts of Christianity, and moral courage to carry them out.

If we could drink more deeply of this spring of living water, we should have more harmony among Christian teachers. There would be less wrangling, and more prayer. We should spend less time in defining our position, and more in efforts to propagate the sweet and precious doctrines of Christianity, which are for the healing of the nations. The discipline of the house of God would be maintained, and the house would become so luminous with truth, that the unconverted who have entered it under excitement, and not under the experience of

doctrinal truth, would be glad to leave it, unless indeed they should be humbled by it in a new and genuine conversion. When this becomes the great characteristic of religious teachers and of our churches, we shall have men enough to go to the heathen. Instead of being burthened with debt, we shall have a surplus at our command, for new enterprises and new fields of labor; and every form of opposition will give way before the light of truth.

ARTICLE VI.

THE CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP OF BURKE.

ONE of the topics of discussion in Mr. Everett's eloquent address on assuming the presidency of Harvard University, is the utility of classical studies. Among other observations in illustration of this theme, he remarks as follows: The Latin and Greek are indeed often thrown aside (after completing the prescribed course in college)— as useless; but is the lawyer, the statesman, the preacher, the medical practitioner, or teacher, quite sure that there is no advantage to be derived in his peculiar pursuit from these neglected studies, either in the way of knowledge directly useful, collateral information, or graceful ornament? Is not the fault in ourselves? We have laid a foundation which we neglect to build upon, and we complain that the foundation is useless. We learn the elements, and neglecting to pursue them, we querulously repeat that the elements are little worth. . . I am quite confident that the young man who should, while at school and at the university, diligently pursue the study of the ancient languages, who, on quitting college, instead of turning his back on the great writers with whom he had formed some acquaintance,-on Homer, on Thucydides, on Plato, on Demosthenes, on the great Attic tragedians, on the classic authors of Rome,-should regularly devote but a small part of the day, a single hour, to their continued perusal, would, at the meridian and still more in the decline of life, experience and admit that, both for instruc

tion and pleasure, these authors were some of the best, the most useful, of his reading; that, if in public life, he addressed juries and senates better, after refreshing his recollection with the manner in which Demosthenes handled a legal argument or swayed a deliberative assembly; that the Iliad and the Odyssey bore a re-perusal as well as Childe Harold or Marmion, (without disparaging Byron or Scott); that the glimpses into the heart of ancient oriental life which we obtain from Xenophon's historical romance (a work which such a man as Scipio Africanus never wished to have out of his hands,†) are as trustworthy and interesting as the vapid changes rung in modern works of imagination on contemporary fashionable life in England; in a word, that the literature which has stood the test of twenty centuries is as profitable as the 'cheap literature' of the day."

We propose, in harmony with these remarks, to offer here a few examples which we have gathered almost at random from the pages of Burke, illustrative of the force and beauty which a writer or speaker may give to his style from a ready command of the resources of classical learning.

The writings of this great master of the English tongue afford abundant evidence of his familiarity with the best productions of Greek and Roman literature. Around every subject on which he employed his pen, whether literary or political, philosophical or historical, he could throw not only the attractions of his own peculiar, matchless style, but the lights also of the richest classical illustration; showing that his mind was crowded with the stores of such learning, and that he could pour them forth on any occasion with a fulness well nigh inexhaustible. It is much to be regretted that we have not a fuller account of his early studies, and especially of the means

*It was at this point of the discourse, we think, that the orator, turning towards Mr. Webster, who was sitting at his right, said-" Tell us, you, sir, who of all men have least need of such aids, whether it be not so?" The effect was electrical. The whole assembly burst forth into the most tumultuous applause, in token at once of their sense both of the justice of the compliment and the tact with which it was bestowed.

Cicero, Tusc. Quæst., Lib. II. c. 26.

We have seen it stated that Burke composed his Vindication of Natural Society in opposition to Bolingbroke, in the country, without access to books, 23*

VOL. XI.-NO. XLII.

which were employed with so much success to imbue his mind with a taste for the great authors of antiquity, and to give him such a mastery over their fine sayings and beautiful sentiments. If Prior in his Life of Burke has detailed all the information which exists on the subject, it is exceedingly meagre. There is a more important end than the gratification of mere curiosity to be subserved in the transmission of knowledge in relation to the manner in which eminent men have been prepared for the part which they subsequently perform in the affairs of life. An important auxiliary to their success, if not the principal ground of it, may frequently be disclosed in laying open the details of their education; and others may be capable of deriving advantage from the same methods of instruction, though not gifted by nature with the same capacity for improvement. The principal facts which Prior mentions in connection with the part of Burke's discipline here in question, are the following.

Until his twelfth year, he appears to have been occupied with the common branches of youthful study, which he pursued chiefly at home, under the direction of private teachers. At this period he was sent to an academy in the north of Ireland, taught by a learned Quaker, and enjoying the deserved reputation of being one of the first classical schools of the time. Here he remained three years, prosecuting the usual studies which are required for admission to the university. It was during this period that he laid the foundation of the taste for elegant learning, which he afterwards cultivated with so much zeal; and in the superiority which even then his companions in study accorded to him, he already anticipated the higher triumphs which he was destined to achieve in the severer competitions of manhood. His passion for the ancient classics was so great that they seemed, says his biographer, to be "his diversion rather than his business;" so much more of a relaxation was it to him

being obliged to depend mainly on his memory for the multifarious facts and minute views of ancient history, politics and literature, which he has introduced with so much effect into that discussion. It is difficult to conceive how any man could be subjected to a severer test of the accuracy and extent of his knowledge, or how he could exhibit, under such a test, powers and acquisitions superior to those discovered in this instance. Of such a man Fox might well say, without transcending the bounds of truth, that he had learnt more from him alone than from all other men and authors.