NOVEMBER 25.-S. KATHERINE, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.— A.D. 305.

S. Katherine was a noble lady of Alexandria, remarkable alike for her great wealth and learning, but more than this for her constancy and purity. She put to silence a body of heathen philosophers, whom Maximian had ordered to reason with her. Her instrument of torture was a wheel armed with sharp spikes, but she finished her confession by the sword. Ancient chronicles tell

that her body was transported to the top of Mount Sinai by Angels; but some have explained this to mean that the monks of the mo

nastery there conveyed it with reverent hands to their home in the wilderness.

Hush the grey dawn is still,

Stiller than night; for Night's dim reign hath ceased,
Nor Day is up, with broken gleams and chill

Streaking the east.

All sleeps: 'mid rugged Sinai's bleak dominions,
Nor breath is heard nor lightest stir is seen
Save the soft motion of those seraph-pinions
Fanning the blue serene.

Cherub and Seraph, warm

With heavenly love, with knowledge ever true,
Trust to a virgin grave a Virgin's form

Who loved, who knew.

In simple pomp they bear her yet uncrowned,

Gracing with emblems meet her constancy,
The Cross she clung to while her foes were round,
The sword that set her free.

There was a form, before

Lay hid in rocky clefts, and sentinelled

Of high Archangel; but the mountain hoar

Fierce strife beheld.

Yet he, the shameless Fiend, who scorned to fear

The wreathing flames the Prophets' brows that pressed,
Dares not approach that slender weapon near

That lies upon her breast.

Sleep, hallowed form, secure

Thine earthly sleep; no need to fence a grave
With consecrating prayers or sprinklings pure,

That Angels gave.

Oh wondrous Saint! to whom such grace was shown;
Oh wondrous Grace! to lift a saint so high;

Oh Life! to live for GoD and Him alone;

Oh Death! for Him to die.

There are, who dare not read

The ensnaring words of man-invented lore,
Whose humbler faith though weaker feels its need,

And dreads it sore.

There are, and saintly, who look down with scorn
On the vain piles that human thought hath built,
Or in sad anger, for each fabrick mourn

Tainted so deep with guilt.

But she did none of these,

Mighty in faith: she learned each earthly art, Intent for service consecrate to seize

Its nobler part,—

Knitting a wreath of every flower most fair

Or bud most sweet that on this earth hath grown, To lay with eager hand and reverent care

Before the Almighty throne.

And in these days again

Is the World's army ranged, with cunning wile
Of Reason and Philosophy profane,

Specious and vile.

O learned Maid! may He, who gave thee power
With burning words their falsehoods to refute,
Pour on our hearts in this all-dangerous hour,
His Wisdom absolute.

So may we win for us,

Though not a place like thine, at least a seat
In the same Heaven, bright and glorious,
Beneath thy feet.

So may thy God and ours, when Day and Night
And Earth and Ocean shall have passed away,
Deign to accept in Mercy Infinite

The service that we pay !

THE TEACHING OF ANCIENT HISTORY:-GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE.

(Continued from p. 226.)

ONE very important particular in early Greek History, and one in which the views alike of Niebuhr, Arnold, and Grote entirely coincide, is the question of what the latter calls eponymous persons, those namely from whom nations and cities profess to derive their names, Hellen, Achæus, Romulus, and such like; all of whom are by these three authorities esteemed purely imaginary. Dr. Thirlwall is less positive on this head; he justly considers that many, probably most, of such names denote purely fictitious persons, and simply owe their origin to a habit which became extensively prevalent, of referring the names of nations and places to such supposed founders or ancestors. "On the other hand," he continues, "it would be rash to pronounce that every legend which refers the

origin and the name of a Greek tribe to an individual, is on that account incredible. Causes may certainly be imagined, through which the name of a chief might sometimes be transferred to his people;" adding in a note, "One may conceive that a land, or a town, might take its name from a powerful chief, and afterwards give it as an epithet to the people."* We ourselves cannot conceive anything more natural than that a tribe, especially a nomad tribe, should take their name from their ancestor or leader. It is only a more extended development of the same process by which so many families, when it was found convenient to assume a surname, adopted the Christian name of the person who then happened to be their head, a process to which we owe equally the not uncommon designations of Thompson and Rogers, and the more aristocratic and high sounding patronymics of Fitzhugh and Geraldine: we are very much inclined to add the Quinctilii and Publilii of ancient Rome; names of houses not derived from mythical heroes, but from every-day prænomina like our own John or William. We are, further disposed to think that false novu imply true ones; Dr. Thirlwall, in the passage just referred to, speaking of the Greek habit of referring all names to persons of this class, observes that "these fictions manifestly sprung up, not accidentally, but from the genius of the people, which constantly tends to embody the spiritual, and to personify the indefinite." But we believe that this is not exclusively, though it certainly is especially, the genius of the Greek people, but is common in different degrees to the human race; the most numerous, familiar, and striking examples may indeed be found in Greek legend, the practice may have been more prevalent and deeply rooted in Greece than elsewhere, but we apprehend that it was by no means confined to that country, but is to be found in almost every nation. It is rather an instinctive propensity of mankind, and, as such, must contain truth; as it has been said that false prophets and false miracles imply true ones, so it is in the present case. Men exaggerate what exists; they imagine, infer, or actually forge, fictitious examples of real classes; but they do not commonly agree to imagine classes which never existed. Thus while we allow that the probabilities against the existence of any given άvuμos in Grecian legend greatly preponderate, we protest altogether against the usual custom of dogmatically denying all possibility of his being a real historical person.

But the question may be put upon quite another and a higher ground, and one which brings it more within the ordinary province of the Ecclesiastic. It most certainly involves very important questions with regard to the Scriptural history. It is much too common a practice to exclude any such reference while treating of what is called profane history. Men are apt to put the sacred narra

* Vol. i. 79.

tives aside by themselves, as if no application or analogy could be drawn from them to other events, as if they recorded a totally different state of things, with which the ordinary course of the world can have no possible connexion. This would seem in some cases to be a cloak for concealed unbelief, concealed very often from the unbeliever himself; in others it arises from a mistaken feeling of reverence; in all it seems closely connected with the notion of making religion one claimant among many, giving it its own assigned sphere, its own times and places, instead of diffusing it over all times and places, making it the one pervading principle of all conduct. But it seems a truer view to suppose that the Scripture history (which, be it remembered, is by no means exclusively confined to the fortunes of the chosen people) is rather a sample of God's dealings with mankind, a single portion of history showing how all history would have been written, had it been the design of Providence to communicate it to mankind under the same infallible sanction. There is no necessity to suppose that the circumstances recorded in Scripture belong to a scheme of Divine Government totally different from that by which it has pleased the Almighty to direct the course of events in other ages and countries. We may rather believe that the diversity consists simply in this, that in the one case the springs and machinery of His Government, if we may so express ourselves with reverence, are in a manner exposed to our view, while in the other they are hidden by a veil, behind which we may not rashly endeavour to penetrate. Even what is palpably supernatural need not be extraordinary; as much concealed supernatural agency may be now at work, as when good and evil spirits were more prominently and visibly employed upon the stage of the world. Thus when we find in Scripture a pestilence attributed to the personal agency of a destroying angel, the truth may rather be that we are here given a glimpse of the real nature of such inflictions in general, than that we are to suppose that particular pestilence to have been of a nature different from all other plagues of a similar kind. Thus again, rationalistic writers have written much to prove the demoniacs of the New Testament to have been merely common madmen, and there is often not a little plausibility in their arguments. We are decidedly inclined to the reverse position, by which, admitting their statement physically, madness in general is supposed to be the result of demoniacal possession. We have digressed somewhat from our immediate subject: but our object is to show what we imagine to be the true relation between sacred and profane history, before we proceed to apply it in the present case.

*This opinion may at first sight seem uncharitable; but there seems no ground in Scripture or reason for supposing that merely physical possession by an evil spirit necessarily implies anything as to the moral state of the individual sufferer; especi ally when we consider the many passages in Scripture which seem to refer bodily diseases in general to Satanic agency.