THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ORATORS AND THEIR AGE. THE first five centuries of the Christian era form, perhaps, the most memorable period in History. They comprise the great crisis in the progress of humanity. This appears to be true if we look merely at the magnitude and grandeur of the external events-the outward action-of that marvellous time. Then it was that the ownership of the continent of Europe changed hands-as the great migration of the nations brought at once into the light of history and the domain of civilisation those new races of men, who have since had in their keeping the destiny and development of the race. Then, too, it was that the vast and spacious fabric of ancient culture, which had stood for more than four thousand years, fell with a crash to the earth; and the kingly form of antiquity, now discrowned, and with his sceptre broken, emerged from the ruins of his palace to recede from the action of the world, and leave the places that once knew him to the usurpation of the mightier Future. Then, too, it was that the great Idea-divine in its origin and energy-which has ever since controlled the fate of civilisation, and which now dominates in the moral world-became impersonated, embodied, and organized in the men and the institutions of the Church, and so, in substantial manifestations, entered like a conqueror on the scenes of human effort to lay the foundations of a new and better social order. Such is the three-fold grandeur even of the first and merely outward action of that age, which found its intellectual expression and utterance in the early eloquence of the Christian Church. But as of all the forms of literature eloquence stands in the closest and most intimate relation with the society which produces it, so to understand aright the spirit and influence of the great Christian crators, we must look more deeply and carefully into the times in which they lived. Force-Freedom-Faith-these are the three cardinal principles or elements of social existence which constitute civilisation. Just in proportion as their union in any single age or nation is intimate and complete, just in that proportion is the civilisation which they produce, vital, vigorous, and consummate. Now it is the memorable peculiarity of the early age of Christian eloquence, that in its social organization, these three fundamental elements of civilisation, so far from being united or harmonized at all, were arrayed against each other in fierce and unrelenting hostility. Each o them, indeed, then exhibited a most powerful existence, a mys imposing aspect, and a most prodigious development; but each was confined and concentrated in a social world of their own. They were soon to be dashed against each other in the fiercest. conflict. With which, at last, should the victory abide? The Roman empire, as it stood in the first centuries of the Christian era, was the embodiment, the impersonation of Force. The Roman, from the day when he fixed his camp on the brow of the Capitoline Hill, and sallied forth on his first expedition of plunder, was man sent forth to subjugate or slay. His armed footsteps yet resound through the pages of history like the heavy tramp of some gigantic warrior pacing in iron harness through his ancestral halls. In the toil of near a thousand years, from the time of Romulus to the time of Trajan, the Roman had builded up without weariness, or pity, or fear, his vast dominion-the Tower of Dread to all the nations. Sixty millions of men, of every language and lineage, were crushed down together into one dark mass of personal servitude, to form its massive foundations. The unhewn granite barbarism of Britain, and the finely chiselled nationality of classic Greece, severely beautiful as her own Parian marble, were compacted together in its mighty masonry. The swords of thirty legions kept guard at its portals; and from its towering battlements, looking out at once on the Euphrates and the Atlantic, on the Scandinavian Forest and the Sahara Desert, went forth the stern voices of doom or destiny, now to stop the fleet career of the Bedouin as he swept over his sea of sand, and now to startle the unkempt savage of the North from his grim repose in the mountain caverns of his home. And how wondrously, within the walls of this gloomy fortress, were all the elements of human nature, and all the achievements of the human mind made to subserve, or arm, or embellish the domineering, giant force, as he dwelt there among his passions! Art, turning away from those gentler labors which, at Athens and Corinth, had peopled portico and temple with images of serene and ideal beauty, caught the sternness of her new abode, and now, with million-handed toil, she piled the colossal breast-works of the Capitol and the Palatium, or stamped upon the rock, as if to live forever in the memories of men, the fixed and frowning look of that grim Roman virtue, which, in the brave days of old, had quelled and subdued the world. Science left the path of peaceful invention to become the handmaid of war; to construct the impregnable camp and the invincible army-to gather, in one eagle glance, the capacities of the battle field-to forge the panoply which no foeman should pierce, or whet to bloodier issues the pilum or the sword. Poetry, breathing no higher inspiration than patriotism, embodied, in forms of epic grandeur, the ancient triumphs, and chanted the proud battle-song of grander victories yet to come. Philosophy came down from the clear upper air of con templation, at the bidding of despotism, to draw up the code. Law, the institutes of obedience, the Pandects of authority, the iron-leaved statue-book of power, this was the one great original result of Roman speculation. Shall its significance be described in a word? It was philosophy going forth in the footsteps of force to police the world. Religion, which had appeared at first in the sombre and terrific shapes of the old Etruscan idolatry, and had thus tamed down the rebelling instincts of a fierce multitude into the unanimity of an organized state, now, when this task was accomplished, loosed her grasp on the conscience, and, no longer aiming at the restraint of power, arrayed herself in Greek or Syrian graces to become his plaything-the show of his holiday. Thus, in the social world of which Rome was the centre, the domineering force, like Prospero in his enchanted isle, obeyed at once by Ariel and Caliban, had summoned up together the highest and the lowest-the mildest and the most savage instincts of humanity, to obey his mandates and perform his work. Such was the antagonistic civilisation which the early orators of the Church were summoned to confront and condemn. It was by far the most grand and complete impersonation of despotising force which the world has seen. Under its iron influence their genius was to grow and to create. But the resources of humanity are boundless. Against the force of a ruthless civilisation, thus concentrated in the despotism, organized in the statue-book, and armed with the sword of Rome, came forth, in forms yet more strange and appalling-the mightier and wilder element of Freedom. The avengers are in the field. From the east and the north-from the cold gorges of the Ural and the Caucasus-from the wide and savage wastes lashed by the stormy waves of the Baltic and German seas-rushed forth at once the hosts of barbarism. An impulse, simultaneous, universal, resistless, set them in motion, at the same moment, in the depths of Central Asia and on the western shores of Europe. As they gather-the Hun and the Vandal, the Saxon and the Goth-and move on, each in his own mighty horde, unconscious of the other-their glittering spear-heads, as if by some preternatural attraction, some providential polarity, all traverse to the Capitol! On! on! to the Eternal City! And now death to the slayer-destruction to the destroyer-woe to the impious Babel, so long drunk with the life-blood of the nations. Such was the savage cry of human freedom, as it rushed forth from its native forest-untamed-barbaricwrathful-tumultuous-to pluck down the great Bastile of civilisa tion. Such was the mode and aspect of freedom, which the Christian orator, in the God-given strength of his faith, was to encounter, and soften, and subdue. And now, between the tyrannous force and the lawless freedom of the times-thus embodied in the Roman and the barbaric worlds THE STAGE. A PROMOTER OF IMMORALITY. WHEN a disease that is infectious exists, and is likely to spread its contagion, it becomes the duty of all persons to warn the ignorant and unwary, and to apply those antidotes which are the most operative and the most lasting. Although many good men are uniting their efforts to effect the good of the rising generation-to train children to habits moral and religious-and to remove them from that heathenish darkness, which too much and too long has pervaded the region of the poorer classes of society-yet, I think, with all their zeal, and all their endeavors, the desired end will not be accomplished, unless the great evil of our theatres be pointed out in a more general and public manner than has been hitherto done. It is this object which dictates the present observations; and, doubtless, the discussion of so general a question as the good or evil tendency of the stage, will prove of the greatest utility in assisting the labors of those benevolent individuals, who employ their time and their property, and exert their influence, in favor of the general good. For my own part, I am not aware of a more delusive amusement than the stage. Nothing, perhaps, has contributed more to corrupt the morals of a people, than play-houses and stage-poets. Nor is it difficult to make this appear so to the candid inquirer, if he will call to mind the means that are used to accomplish the intention of the authors. Let us not forget the general sentiments of most plays. There we find that pride, resentment, and false honor are conspicuously sanctioned; that piety is very often represented in a ridiculous light; and that those who assume the character of public instructors, are made to be "wolves in sheep's clothing.' It is frequently the case, that the grossest licentiousness is considered a minor fault, and matrimony, the ordinance of our Creator, is made a scene of burlesque, and contemptuous merriment. Is not the rake frequently the favorite of the piece? and at the end of the play he often gets rewarded for his libertinism. Yet, notwithstanding the notoriety of these facts, there are individuals, who, bearing the character of fathers, lead their children to those haunts of immorality! As a parent, I would raise my loudest voice against those sinks of iniquity, and lead the young and tender mind to a more chaste and innocent amusement. But can it be said that the theatre is a means of inculcating morality, and forming virtuous habits? Where is this lesson of morality taught? Is it in the representation of fictitious characters and incidents, made pliable to the nod of the stage-poet, or is it in the lives of |