eign nations, on account of the injustice and vices of those, whom for these some years we have sent among them as governors. For what temple in those places do you think is held sacred by our magistrates; the privileges of what city inviolable; what house sufficiently closed up and fortified." These forcible expressions, however, are not the most striking that may be produced from the many passages, in which Cicero speaks on this subject. In his oration against appointing Q. Cæcilius as the accuser of Verres, he says: "The provinces wasted, harrassed, thoroughly ruined, the allies and tributaries of the Roman people afflicted and miserable, have now no hope of being raised from destruction, but only seek some consolation under it."

From the condition of the Roman provinces, we may turn to notice the barbarism and atrocity of ancient warfare. We shall not, however, enlarge on the subject. The invasion of an enemy's country, for the purpose of laying it waste and destroying all the works of nature or art, which could not be carried off as plunder, the general and indiscriminate massacre of its inhabitants in such invasions, the putting to death of prisoners, and the exposure of the whole population of a city for sale as slaves, are facts continually presented to the view of the observer of antiquity. War thus carried on was generally considered as lawful against all those, with whom there existed no express treaty or agreement. "It appears to have been very generally held among the Greeks of that age,' says Mitford, speaking of the times of the Peloponnesian war, "that men were bound by no duties to each other, without some express compact. The property of foreigners might be anywhere seized, and themselves reduced to slavery, or even put to death, without the breach of any human law; and not only without the breach of any divine law, but prayers were addressed to the gods for favor and assistance in the commission of such violences."

Barbarous as was the general mode of warfare among the ancients, it was sometimes exceeded by acts of particular ferocity. More than once, during the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians deliberately passed a decree for putting to death all the adult males of a conquered people, and selling into slavery the women and children. We shall give a passage relating to one of these decrees concerning the Melians. "The Athenians," says Mitford, “had no pretence for any command over the Melians, but that they were stronger. Connected by blood, by habit, and by their form of government with Lacedæmon, these islanders had nevertheless been cautiously inoffensive to Athens, till forced to become her enemies. The punishment for this involuntary crime, even to the lower people supposed to be in some degree friendly, was no less than what the unfortunate Scionæans had undergone for that termed their rebellion. All the adult males were put to death, and the women and children of all ranks were sold for slaves. The island

was divided among five hundred Athenian families. With the most unquestionable testimony to facts, which strike us with horror when perpetrated by a tribe of savages, we are at a loss to conceive how they could take place in the peculiar country and age of the fine arts, where Pericles had spoken and ruled, where Thucydides was then writing, where Socrates was then teaching, where Zenophon, Plato and Isocrates were receiving their education, and where the paintings of Parrhasius and Zeuxis, the sculpture of Phidias and Praxiteles, the architecture of Callicrates and Ictinus, and the sublime and chaste dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, formed the delight of the people."

Among the beneficial effects of Christianity, one not the least important is, the institution of regular public instruction in religion and morals. But with respect to the lower classes of society among the ancients, they were without public teaching, and books were much too scarce for general use. The philosophers had no effect in removing the ignorance or correcting the depravity of the times, when they lived. Their teachings were not addressed to the vulgar, nor were their moral discourses within their reach, or adapted to their comprehension. Indeed the fundamental principles of the better sects were such, that their philosophy was not likely to have much influence upon common minds. They admitted no other sanction of moral conduct than that happiness, which, in the present life, virtue from its own nature confers on its possessor. They maintained that a perfectly virtuous man must be perfectly happy even amid torments, that he was impassible to every thing external, and that his self-enjoyment was not to be affected by the accidents of life, the loss of friends, the suffering of those around him, by men or by the gods. These sentiments, either in their full extent or with some modification, seem in the days of Cicero to have been adopted by almost all the philosophers, who paid much attention to the inculcating of morality.

It is obvious enough that with these sentiments, the philosophers were able to do nothing for the reformation of the times when they lived. Let them have lectured ever so long, not one slave of interest or passion, not one of the corrupted multitude around them, would have been restrained from any excess or injustice, through a regard to the intrinsic enjoyments of virtue.

The religion of the ancients had very little beneficial effect upon their moral conduct. Its temporal sanctions, where they were at all regarded, seem to have been feared much more for the neglect of ceremonies and offerings, and for any direct insult to the gods, such as the profaning a temple, than for a disregard or violation of the duties of man to man. The inefficacy of a religion with such sanctions, and the contempt into which it must at some times fall, are so well explained by Mitford, that we will give the passage entire. It is with reference to the plague at Athens, that he is speaking.

"The moral effects of this extraordinary visitation deserve our notice. Wherever the doctrine of retribution in a life to come for good and evil deeds in this world has taken any hold on the minds of men, a general calamity strongly tends to check the passions, to inspire serious thought, to direct attention toward that future existence, and to make both hope and fear converge to the great Author of nature, the all-powerful, all-wise, and all-just God, who can recompense the suffering of the good with endless blessings, and convert to lasting misery any short lived joys, that can arise from the perpetration of evil. But in Athens, where the Deity was looked to very generally and very anxiously for the dispensation of temporal good and evil only, it was otherwise. The fear of the divine power, says Thucydides, ceased; for it was observed, that to worship the gods; to obey or not to obey those laws of morality, which have been always held most sacred among men, availed nothing. All died alike; or if there was a difference, the virtuous, the charitable, the generous, exposing themselves beyond others, were the first and the surest to suffer. An inordinate and before unknown licentiousness of manners followed. Let us enjoy ourselves; let us, if possible, drown thought in pleasure to-day, for to-morrow we die, was the prevailing maxim. No crime therefore that could give the means of any enjoyment, was scrupled; for such were the ravages of the disease, that for perpetrator, accuser and judges all to survive, so that an offender could be convicted in regular course of law, was supposed against all chance; and the final consummation already impending over equally the criminal, and the innocent, by the decree of fate or of the gods, any punishment, that human laws could decree, was little regarded. How most to enjoy life, while life remained, became the only consideration; and this relaxation, almost to a dissolution of all moral principle, is lamented by Thucydides as a lasting effect of the pestilence at Athens."

What we have seen is not, however, the most unfavorable view of the religion of the ancients. Some of its direct tendencies were to inflame the passions and to countenance the vices of those, among whom it prevailed. Its rites were some of them cruel, and some of them consisted in the excesses of drunkenness and impurity. In the characters of its gods, the lewd and the ferocious equally found for themselves examples and excuses.* Nor were these, as is apparent from the dramatic poets and other writers of antiquity, disregarded, or infrequently alleged. What is said by one of the characters of Terence, who asks why he who was but a man might not do what the gods committed, "hoc ego homuncio non facerem," was, we may easily believe, a sentiment often repeated.

* What were Saturn, and Moloch, and Venus, and Bacchus, but cruelty, and lust, and intemperance personified? And what were their altars, their temples, and their groves, but scenes of the grossest pollution, and often of the most horrid crimes?

Such then (to say nothing of the immense multitude of slaves) was the condition of the great body of the free population among the ancients. They were without moral instruction, not acknowledging some of the most obvious principles of humanity and justice; with no institutions to call to remembrance those principles, whose obligation they might speculatively acknowledge, and to give these that efficacy which they have only when continually enforced upon the mind; without anything in their religion to make virtue venerable or vice odious; and what alone might be almost sufficient to give the character of the times, without any regard to the sanctions of a future life, which had a general influence on men's conduct; and the consequent corruption was dreadful.

THE IMPASSABLE BRIDGE.

In one of my late excursions into the country to preach the gospel to the poor, I met with a Christian brother in humble life, who had been distinguished for his uniform zeal and faithfulnesss in the cause of Christ. He had encountered many discouragementsfrom his minister, from some of his professed brethren, as well as from a scoffing world, but had persevered, not altogether without success, in his endeavors to arouse his neighbors and those around him from their slumbers, and bring them to a saving knowledge of the truth. I had a curiosity to know the history of this man's religious experience;-to learn what it was which originally gave him such an impulse, and had borne him on in such an uniform course of labor and self-denial in the service of the Redeemer. I took an opportunity to state to him my wishes, and found him not unwilling to gratify me in this matter.

He proceeded with much modesty, and with every appearance of sincerity and truth, to give me substantially the following ac

count.

6

'I was,' said he, awakened and I trust brought to repentance in early life. But being alone in my feelings, and living where I had none to encourage me, and where the church was not in altogether a desirable state, I neglected to profess religion; and (after a season of enjoyment) I relapsed into a state of comparative worldliness. In this state I lived several years, performing some religious duties, and finding comfort in them, but neglecting others, and my heart often reproaching me for my unfaithfulness. At length, it pleased God to visit me with protracted sickness. I was not dangerously ill, but my confinement was long and tedious. This trial, however, produced no very perceptible change in my

feelings. If it should please God to take me away, I hoped I was prepared to die. Or if he should restore me, I thought I felt willing to live to his glory. But, alas, I had no adequate conception at that time of what it is to live to God's glory, or of what is implied in such a course of life.

In this state of mind I was gradually recovering, with a prospect of being soon able to resume my wonted labors, when, on a certain night, I had a remarkable dream or vision. I seemed to myself to be standing on an eminence, with a vast plain, steeply inclined towards a broad, dark river, stretched out before me. A wide bridge was constructed part way over the river, the farther end of which was obscured in a thick, impenetrable fog or mist. which lay along on the opposite side of the stream. To persons on the plain, the bridge seemed to reach quite across the river, and to promise a safe and pleasant passage; but in my situation, I could distinctly perceive that it reached only till it had entered the mist, and terminated just beyond the middle of the flood. I saw but one way of approach to the plain; but there were two ways leading from it,—the one by the bridge already described, and the other on the opposite side of the plain, up a steep and somewhat difficult bank. The way to the plain was thronged with travellers, and the plain itself seemed covered with people of both sexes, and of all ages, ranks, and conditions in life. Every one of this immense multitude was busy, and many among them seemed as though they might be happy. The steep inclination of the plain gave a constant and strong downward tendency to those who came upon it, so that at every step the multitude in general were insensibly verging towards the bank of the river. The consequence was that while only a few attempted to get from the plain by means of the passage on the upper side of it, thousands were crowding to the bridge, and vainly thinking to pass over it in safety. I saw them enter upon it, and rush gaily along, flattering themselves that there was no danger, and that soon they should be beyond the deep waters, till presently they entered the mist and were hidden from the eyes of those who followed them, when they dropped one after another into the stream, and sunk in its dark flood to rise no more. I continued looking at this shocking spectacle, till my heart was full-ready to burst-and in the effort to cry out to the deluded throng who were just entering on the bridge, or were about to enter, Stop! Stop! Stop! I awoke,-and it was a dream.

But though it was a dream, the impression it made upon my heart was indelible. I have never lost it, and I never shall. The vision, I saw at once, was full of meaning. The plain is the world. The bridge is the broad road spoken of by the Saviour. The path up the bank represents the strait and narrow way which leadeth unto life. And seeing, as I continually do, thousands and thou