is the one or the other only according to its quality, and the purpose it is made to serve. For its own sake, it is no more commendable or desirable than any other worldly possession. The common notions on this head, which revived with the Revival of Letters, as it is called, in the fifteenth century, are pure heathenism ; and these notions, we are sorry to say, are not confined to the Protestant world, which may claim them by right of inheritance. Even some Catholics, without reflection, give in to them, and we have been not a little scandalized by M. Audin's History of Luther, and especially by some extracts we have seen from his Life of Leo the Tenth. No Protestant could surpass him in his depreciation of the Middle Ages, or in his ecstasies over the Renaissance. We doubt not the purity of his motives, or the sincerity of his zeal; but to undertake to gain a momentary triumph to Catholicity by a principle of defence which was disapproved yesterday, and must be abandoned to-morrow, is as unwise as it is sad. The Church speaks through all ages in the same severe and inflexible language, and never turns aside from her direct course, either at the opposition of enemies or the solicitations of friends. The «i classical ” infatuation of even Churchmen in the fifteenth century, and the first half of the sixteenth, is excusable, for they had in spite of it splendid attainments, noble qualities, and solid virtues ; but to make that infatuation itself a virtue, and to set it forth as one of the glories of the Church as the Spouse of God and Mother of the faithful, is to suffer one's self to be overpowered by the spirit of our times, and to forget for a moment that faith and piety are not to be measured by their relation to literature and art.

To the old heathen philosophers, - men who had cast off their national superstitions, but who had only a feeble belief even in the existence of God, and no abiding hope of an hereafter, weary of the world, disgusted with its vanities, and too wise to be seduced by its honors and distinctions, — literature, what they termed philosophy, was, no doubt, useful as a relief from the burdens of existence, as a retreat and a solace. One easily feels, while reading, Cicero's eloquent discoursing in praise of philosophy. The great object with these old philosophers, whatever the school to which they belonged, was to devise the means of making life as tolerable as it could be. Life was empty. It came, no one could say whence or wherefore, and its issue was into night and eternal silence. It was the part of wisdom to seize the present moment, and to

make the most of it. Of all the sources of consolation open to them, especially in old age, the most respectable and efficacious was the tranquil pursuit of letters. This removed them from the cares and vexations of the world, the turmoils of the camp, and the intrigues and rivalries of the court, soothed their passions, protected 'them from perturbation, and secured them a measure of repose, of serenity, and peace. To men in our day whose want of faith and hope is the same as theirs, letters are, no doubt, the readiest and safest resort. We can easily understand that men who have no faith in God as the author of grace, who have lost all hope of a future life, in the Christian sense, who have come to regard heaven and hell as mere fables which served to amuse the infancy of the race, and to whom life appears once more what it did to the old pagan philosopher, should feel existence a burden, and the need of something to fill up the vacancy in their hearts, to absorb the activity of their minds, to tranquillize their passions, and relieve, in some degree, the gloom which to them necessarily settles over man and the universe. To them, as to the saint, though for a different reason, the world with all its interests is vanity, yea, less than vanity and nothing. Darkness is behind them; darkness is before them. There is nothing to live for. Existence has no end or aim, and, if relief is not obtained from some source, it becomes too literally intolerable, and men with their own hands, to a fearful extent, cut its thread. Some plunge into the dissipation of the senses ; others into that of the sentiments, and annoy us with their Utopian dreams of moral or social meliorations ; and others, perhaps the least foolish, betake themselves to the quiet and tranquillizing pursuits of literature.

It is as a relief, as a solace, that literature is mainly recommended by the moderns, as well as the ancients, and it is to wants like these we have indicated that what is reckoned as literature, from the pagan classics down to the last new novel, addresses itself. It takes and studies to adapt itself to the old heathen view of life. This undeniable fact is not unworthy of being meditated, and if meditated might help us to form a tolerably correct estimate of what the world calls literature, and of the importance of devoting ourselves to its cultivation. Are we required to reproduce heathenism, and to provide for the old pagan views of life, the old pagan state and temper of individuals and society? Are we, like the old pagan philosopher, to think only of a solace for the cares and burdens of exist

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VOL. I. NO. III.

ence, and to confine ourselves to those resources only which were open to him ? Has not the Gospel brought life and immortality to light, thrown a new coloring over all things, dissipated the darkness behind us and the darkness before us, and opened to us resources from the burdens of existence, the vanities of the world, the vacancy of thought, the listlessness of effort, the perturbations of the passions, and the solicitations of the senses, of which he knew nothing, and which for his blindness, unbelief, and despair had no existence ?

We live under the Gospel, and we insist upon our right to try all things by the Christian standard. Under the Gospel, no man has the need or the right to resort even to letters as a relief from the burdens of existence, a solace for the troubles and afflictions of life, or as a means of personal enjoyment. The pleasures of intellect, of taste, and imagination may be less hurtful than those of the senses, but there is no more virtue in seeking the one than there is in seeking the other; and though he who seeks the one may make a better calculation than he who devotes himself to the other, neither can claim to have risen to the lowest degree of Christian morality. Hence, literature, either in author or reader, can never be sought by a Christian for its own sake, nor for the sake of the pleasures of wit, taste, and imagination it may bring. No Christian man can esteem it or cultivate it for the old heathenish reasons still too often urged, and a literature for those reasons, and adapted to meet them, he not only does not desire, but looks upon as a positive evil. Such literature, and he includes within it the most admired productions of ancient and modern genius, however highly he may appreciate them under the relation of form, he believes to be incapable of contributing any thing good, in the Christian sense, either to individuals or to the world at large; he even believes it likely to do great harm, for it takes a false view of life, and in all cases springs from man's forgetfulness of his real relations to his Maker, of the real purpose of his being, or from a revolt against the law imposed on him by his Sovereign for his governance, and the desire to find a resource independent of that appointed, in his infinite wisdom, by our good Father, and which it is against our true interest we should find or resort to.

Nevertheless, though in the popular sense, if sense it be, we have and can have no respect for mere literature, there is

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praising or cultivating them. We are by no means among those who hold that a man, unable to read, is necessarily deprived of all good; nor are we in the habit of estimating the intelligence and virtue of a community by the number of its members who have or who have not mastered the spellingbook. There are blockheads who can read, write, and even cipher; and of the amount of intelligence actually possessed by the great majority of those who have graduated at our common schools, we should perhaps be surprised, were we to inquire, to find how little has been acquired by their own reading. The proportion of those having a good common education, who are able to read with profit a serious book on any important subject, is much smaller than is commonly imagined. There is, unhappily, amongst us no little senseless cant on the subject of education, which

we owe in no small degree to certain English, Scotch, and French unbelievers, who were kind enough some years since to visit us for the benevolent purpose of enlightening the natives, or, as George Combe, Esq., of Edinburgh, expressed it, in his opening lecture in this city on his favorite humbug, Pbrenology, to “sow” among us “the seeds of civilization.” The principal of these were Frances Wright, Owen, father and son, R. L. Jennings, and William Phiquepal. These felt sure, that, if they could once get a system of universal education established throughout the country, which should pass over religion in silence, and teach knowledge, they would soon be able to convert all our churches and meeting-houses into Halls of Science, and our people generally into Free Inquirers. In furtherance of their plan, they organized among us a secret association, very much on the plan of the Carbonari in Europe. How far the organization extended, and whether it yet subsists or not, we are unable to say, for our personal connection with it was short, and has long since ceased altogether ; but it might be not uninteresting to inquire how much of the cant about education and the irreligious direction education has received of late, and which so scandalizes the Christian, are due to its influence. However this may be, and however little we are disposed to give in to the nonsense which is constantly babbled about education, we still prize education, rightly understood, as highly as do any of our countrymen. The question with us is of the quality before the quantity. A bad education is worse than none, as error is always worse than simple ignorance. But let the education be of the right sort, be that which instructs, prepares,

and strengthens the pupil for the prompt and faithful discharge of all the duties which pertain to his state in life, and the more we have of it the better.

So of literature. Literature, in our sense of the term, is composed of works which instruct us in that which it is necessary for us to know in order to discharge, or the better to discharge, our duties as moral, religious, and social beings. Works which tend to divert us from these, which weaken the sense of their obligation, or give us false views of them, or false reasons for performing them, are bad, worse than none, though written with the genius of Byron, Moore, Goethe, Milton, Dante, or Shakspeare. Genius is respectable only when she plumes her wing at the cross, and her light dazzles to blind or to bewilder when not borrowed from the Source of light itself. No man, whose soul is not filled, whose whole being is not permeated, with the spirit of the Christian religion, can write even a spelling-book fit or safe to be used by a Christian people. But works written in exposition of the Christian faith, or of some one or all of our duties in any or all of our relations in life, and breathing the true Christian spirit; or works which tend to enlist our sensibilities, taste, imagination, and affections in the cause of truth and duty, though not in all cases, under all circumstances absolutely indispensable, are yet desirable, useful, and compose a literature honorable to the individuals or the nation creating, cultivating, or appreciating it.

Such a literature is, unquestionably, religious in its spirit, in its principles and tendencies ; but this is its recommendation ; for religion is not only the primary interest of mankind, but the sole interest, and includes in itself all subordinate interests, and what it does not include and identify with itself is no interest at all. Who says religion says every thing not sin or vanity. Yet this need frighten no one. A religious literature is no doubt grave and solenın, working the deep mines of thought, or plodding through piles of erudition ; but it is also light and cheerful, tender and joyous, giving full play to wit and fancy, taste and imagination, feeling and affection. It ranges through heaven and earth, and gathers from every region flowers to adoro its song or gladden its music. It demands, indeed, the solemn purpose, the pure intention, the manly thought, and strong sense ; but it delights in smiles, eschews the dark and gloomy, the sour and morose, and decks even the tomb with garlands of fresh-blown roses.

But such a literature is not produced with “malice pre