EXTRACTS FROM DEAN STANLEY. [ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D. Dean of Westminster, born 1815, was a pupil of Dr. Thomas Arnold (whose life he afterward wrote) at Rugby School, graduated at Oxford, 1838, where he became tutor and professor of ecclesiastical history, taking orders in the Church of England, of which he became noted as one of the most liberal and scholarly members. His chief works are “Sinai and Palestine" (1856), “ History of the Eastern Church" (1861), “History of the Jewish Church" (1862-76), “Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey" (1867), and many volumes of sermons, essays, etc. He died in 1881.] THE OLDEST OBELISK IN THE WORLD-THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN AT HELIOPOLIS. Rising wild amidst garden shrubs is the solitary obelisk which stood in front of the temple, then in company with another, whose base alone now remains. This is the first obelisk I have seen standing in its pro per place, and there it has stood for nearly four thousand years. It is the oldest known in Egypt, and therefore in the world-the father of all that have arisen since. It was raised about a century before the coming of Joseph; it has looked down on his marriage with Asenath; it has seen the growth of Moses; it is mentioned by Herodotus; Plato sat under its shadow: of all the obelisks which sprang up around it, it alone has kept its first position. One by one, it has seen its sons and brothers depart to great destinies elsewhere. From these gardens came the obelisks of the Lateran, of the Vatican, and of the Porta del Popolo; and this venerable pillar (for so it looks from a distance) is now almost the only landmark of the great seat of the wisdom of Egypt. THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT. The relation of the Desert to its modern inhabitants is still illustrative of its ancient Hebrews called "the wilderness," including history. The general name by which the always that of Sinai, was "the pasture." Bare as the surface of the Desert is, yet the thin clothing of vegetation, which is seldom entirely withdrawn, especially the aromatic shrubs on the high hillsides, furnish sufficient sustenance for the herds of the six thousand Bedouins who constitute the present popu lation of the peninsula. Along the mountain ledges green, The scattered sheep at will may glean So were they seen following the daughters or the shepherd-slaves of Jethro. So may they be seen climbing the rocks, or gathered round the pools and springs of the valleys, under the charge of the black-veiled Bedouin women of the present day. And in the Tiyâha, Towâra, or Alouin tribes, with their chiefs and followers, their dress, and manners, and habitations, we probably see the likeness of the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the Israelites themselves in this their earliest stage of existence. The long straight lines of black tents which cluster round the Desert springs, present to us, on a small We make the following extracts as exam- scale, the image of the vast encampment ples of his clear scholarly style: gathered round the one sacred tent which, with its coverings of dyed skins, stood con- | his own words. He was sitting with his spicuous in the midst, and which recalled the period of their nomadic life long after their settlement in Palestine. The deserted villages, marked by rude inclosures of stone, are doubtless such as those to which the Hebrew wanderers gave the name of "Hazeroth," and which afterwards furnished the type of the primitive sanctuary at Shiloh. The rude burial-grounds, with the many nameless headstones, far away from human habitation, are such as the host of Israel must have left behind them at the different stages of their progress at Massah, at Sinai, at Kibroth-hattaavah, "the graves of desire." The salutations of the chiefs, in their bright scarlet robes, the one going out to meet the other," the "obeisance," the "kiss" on each side the head, the silent entrance into the tent for consultations, are all graphically described in the encounter between Moses and Jethro. The constitution of the tribes, with the subordinate degrees of sheiks, recommended by Jethro to Moses, is the very same which still exists amongst those who are possibly his lineal descendants-the gentle race of the Towâra. 66 CONVERSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Augustine's youth had been one of reck less self-indulgence. He had plunged into the worst sins of the heathen world in which he lived; he had adopted wild opinions to justify those sins; and thus, though his parents were Christians, he himself remained a heathen in his manner of life, though not without some struggles of his better self and of God's grace against these evil habits. Often he struggled and often he fell; but he had two advantages which again and again have saved souls from ruin-advantages which no one who enjoys them (and how many of us do enjoy them!) can prize too highly-he had a good mother and he had good friends. He had a good mother, who wept for him, and prayed for him, and warned him, and gave him that advice which only a mother can give, forgotten for the moment, but remembered afterwards. And he had good friends, who watched every opportunity to encourage better thoughts, and to bring him to his better self. In this state of struggle and failure he came to the city of Milan, where the Christian community was ruled by a man of fame almost equal to that which he himself afterwards won, the celebrated Ambrose. And now the crisis of his life was come, and it shall be described in friend, his whole soul was shaken with the We need not follow the story further. We know how he broke off all his evil courses; how his mother's heart was rejoiced; how he was baptized by the great Ambrose; how the old tradition describes their singing together, as he came up from the baptismal waters, the alternate verses of the hymn called from its opening words Te Deum Laudamus. We know how the profligate African youth was thus transformed into the most illustrious saint of the Western Church, how he lived long as the light of his own generation, and how his works have been cherished and read by good men, perhaps more extensively than those of any Christian | the metamorphoses themselves occupy but teacher since the Apostles. It is a story in- a small part of the book, which finds its structive in many ways. It is an example, real charm and beauty in the brilliant epilike the conversion of St. Paul, of the fact sodes, for the introduction of which they that from time to time God calls His ser- supply the occasion. vants not by gradual, but by sudden changes. How far the idea was Ovid's own it is impossible to say. Two Greek poets are knowr to have written on the same subject. One of them was Nicander, of Colophon, in Asia Minor, an author of the second century B. C., THE METAMORPHOSES OR TRANS. attached, it would seem, to the court of FORMATIONS. [PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, the great Roman poet, was born at Sulmo, about 90 miles from Rome, March 20th, B. C., 43, died in exile, A. D., 18. He came of a noble family, and was educated in the best accomplishments of the times. After travelling through Sicily, Greece, and Asia, he settled in Rome, forming one of that gal axy of talent which distinguished the Augustan era. When 50 years old he was banished to Torni, on the Euxine, which event he immortalizes in his "Tristia." His works are, “The Amores," the picture of a dissolute age, “The Roman Fasti," and "The Metamorphoses," of which we present the Rev. Alfred Church's abridgement from "The Ancient Classics."] Ovid tells us that before he was banished he had written, but not corrected, the fifteen books of the "Metamorphoses," and had also composed twelve books (only six have been preserved) of the "Fasti" or Roman Calendar. These are his chief surviving poems. In the "Metamorphoses" we have the largest and most important of Ovid's works; and, if we view it as a whole, the greatest monument of his poetical genius. The plan of the book is to collect together, out of the vast mass of Greek mythology and legend, the various stories which turn on the change of men and women from the human form into animals, plants, or inanimate objects. Nor are the tales merely collected. Such a collection would have been inevitably monotonous and tiresome. With consummate skill the poet arranges and connects them together. The thread of connection is often slight; sometime it is broken altogether. But it is sufficiently continuous to keep alive the reader's interest; which is, indeed, often excited by the remarkable ingenuity of the transition from one tale to another. But it did not escape the author's perception, that to repeat over and over again the story of a marvel which must have been as incredible to his own contemporaries as it is to us, would have been to insure failure. Hence Pergamus, which, under the dynasty of the Attali, was a famous centre of literary activ ity. Of his work, the "Changes" (for so we may translate its Greek title), only a few fragments are preserved, quite insufficient Parthenius, a native of the Bithynian to give us any idea of its merits or methods. Nicæa, so famous in ecclesiastical history, may be credited with having given some hints to the Roman poet,-to whom, indeed, as a contemporary,* and connected with the great literary circle of Rome, he was proba bly known. Parthenius, we know on good authority, taught the Greek language to Virgil, who condescended to borrow at least one line from his preceptor. His "Metamorphoses" have entirely perished. We have only the probability of the case to warrant us in supposing that Ovid was under obligations to him. Of these obligations, indeed, no ancient authority speaks; and it is safe, probably, to conjecture that they were inconsiderable-nothing, certainly, like what Virgil owed to Homer, Hesiod, and Theocritus. It would weary the reader, not to mention the space which the execution of such a task would require, to conduct him along the whole course of the metamorphoses-from the description of Chaos, with which the poet begins, to the transformation of the murdered Cæsar into a comet, with which, not following the customary adulation to the successor of the great Dictator, he concludes. Specimens must suffice; and the book is one which, better than any other great poem that can be mentioned, specimens may adequate ly represent. The first book begins, as has been said, with a description of Chaos. "Nothing," says Bayle, in his satirical fashion, "could be clearer and more intelligible than this description, if we consider only the poetical phrases; but if we examine its philosophy, * Parthenius died at an advanced age, about the b ginning of the reign of Tiberius. we find it confused and contradictory-a | He inveighs against the enormities of man, chaos, in fact, more hideous than that which recounting what he had himself witnessed he has described." Bayle, however, looked when he had― for what the poet never pretended to give. His cosmogony is, at least, as intelligible as world." "Putting off the God, any other; and it is expressed with marvel- Disguised in human semblance walked the lous force of language, culminating in one of the noblest of the poet's efforts, the description of the creation of man, the crown and masterpiece of the newly-made world. "Something yet lacked-some holier being -dowered With lofty soul, and capable of rule Of Him, the artificer of things, and cause Which wise Prometheus, with the plastic aid Of water borrowed from the neighbouring stream, Formed in the likeness of the all-ordering Gods; And, while all other creatures sought the ground With downward aspect grovelling, gave to The four ages of the world thus created are described; and to the horrors of the last of these, the Age of Iron, succeeds the tale of its crowning wickedness-the attempt of the giants to scale the heights of heaven. Jupiter smites down the assailants, and the earth brings forth from their blood "A race of Gods Contemptuous, prone to violence and lust Of strife, and bloody-minded, born from blood." Jupiter calls his fellow-gods to council, and they pass to his hall along the way— name. Many shameful sights he had witnessed, but the worst horror had met him in the hall of Lycaon, the Arcadian king, who, after at tempting to murder his guest, had served up to him a feast of human flesh. Lycaon, indeed, had paid the penalty of his crime : "Terror-struck he fled, And through the silence of the distant plains Glutting on helpless flocks his ancient lust But a wider vengeance was needed. The whole race of man must be swept away. Thus we come to a description of the deluge. Of all mankind, two only are left,-Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and Pyrrha, daughter of the brother Titan Epime theus "Than he no better, juster man had lived; Than she no woman holier." The mount, and, with veiled head and vest ungirt, "Sublime of milky whiteness, whence its Behind them, as commanded, fling the stones. And lo!-a tale past credence, did not all Antiquity attest it true,-the stones Two lines of Dryden's version are here worth Their natural rigour lose, by slow degrees quoting: "Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies." Softening and softening into form; and grow, And swell with milder nature, and assume Rude semblance of a human shape, not yet boughs Distinct, but like some statue new-conceived | Before the gates Augustan shalt thou stand Flushed with his victory over the monster, Apollo meets Cupid, and asks him what right he has to such a manly weapon as the bow. Cupid retaliates by a shaft which sets the Sun-God's heart on fire with a passion for Daphne, daughter of Peneus, fairest and chastest of nymphs. She flies from his pursuit, and, when flight is ineffectual, is changed at her own prayer into a laurel. The god makes the best of his defeat : "And if,' he cries, 'Thou canst not now my consort be, at least My tree thou shalt be! Still thy leaves shall crown My locks, my lyre, my quiver. Thine the brows Of Latium's lords to wreathe, what time the voice Of Rome salutes the triumph, and the pomp Of long procession scales the Capitol. Bearing the crown to civic merit due:- (One of the frigid conceits with which Ovid often betrays a faulty taste.) His grief was for his daughter Io, whom he has lost, changed by Juno into a heifer. The feelings of the transformed maiden are told with some pathos. "By the loved banks she strays Of Inachus, her childhood's happy haunt, And in the stream strange horns reflected views, Back-shuddering at the sight. The Naiads see And know her not :-nor Inachus himself Can recognise his child,-though close her sire She follows-close her sister-band,—and courts Their praise, and joys to feel their fondling hands. Some gathered herbs her father proffers |