but the mere fragments of their works, records of the perfection of art and mental power, the excellence of which, through the lapse of two thousand years, is enhanced by the fruitless efforts of the noblest minds to equal it.

The productions of the poets, artists, and orators of Greece have become models for all time. But our present theme is with her philosophers. Deprived of that one ray of light, divine revelation, which must have fallen like dew upon their souls, how boldly, how nobly they battled with the fearful shades of ignorance and doubt, and how hardily they contested with those grim phantoms, Necessity and Fate, which met them at every turn, and which, in spite of mental and moral courage, and hope, and trust, derived from the beautiful analogies of nature, threw a veil of obscurity and doubt over the dead and the future, darkening with their shadows, however afar off, the brightest dreams of the philanthropist, and bidding him repress the holiest emotions of passion and of feeling, as a weakness unbecoming the stern ritual which his warfare against evil must in some degree have taught him.

But of these philosophers whom shall we select? Let us take Pythagoras, let us take Plato. The limits of this paper, however, preclude our giving, as we intended, a sketch of their characters and opinions. In the youth of the fresh world, in the spring time of that era of science and philosophy, they arose to minister thoughts of beauty, and eloquence, and truth, to the inquiring mind. With Plato, there are enshrined so many associations of gentleness and beauty, that heathen as he was, he was worthy in spirit of being a Christian!

Pythagoras was the elder philosopher by several Olympiads. Wonderful were the energies of this extraordinary man. To him after ages have not failed to attribute some of the grandest discoveries of human intellect. From his discoveries even the divine Plato learned his doctrine of immortality, and was enabled to give to the world a purer conception of the Deity. At an early age, Pythagoras became acquainted with poetry and music, eloquence and astronomy. At an early age,

he was a victorious competitor at the Olympiac games, and was crowned in the presence of the judges and his countrymen. Yet, though in the pride of youth and manly beauty, he tarried not to drink in with delicious delight that homage to genius which often, all that it requires, to the exclusion of more substantial meed, is the very atmosphere it would breathe, the oil that feeds the lamp, and without which it must die!

Pythagoras travelled to distant lands-to Persia and Chaldea, from the Magi of which he learned the art of divination, the interpreting of dreams, and astrology, that dream of dreams. Through barbarous nations he wandered; nay, even the very Thule itself was supposed not to be unvisited by him in his search for knowledge.

He suffered persecution, neglect, and scorn. He attempted to found a school of philosophy at Crotona; but the minds of men were as yet unprepared for the truths he taught. In vain did he endeavour to veil, by mysteries and symbols, from the prejudiced and vulgar minded, the principles he would have substantiated. The people rose against him, he was already doomed to martyrdom, his school was dissolved, and he was compelled to fly to Rhegium. He sought shelter of the Locrians: it was denied him : he fled on to Metapontum, he appealed to the sympathies of his fellow-men, the beings in whose cause his whole life had been a series of privations and of trials. He was repulsed with scorn. Who pitied then the hunted victim; who would not rather join in the pursuit, even though ignorant of the cause for which he was pursued? Pythagoras in despair took refuge in the temple of the Muses at Metapontum. Their shrine was a sanctuary for him from all save hunger; there was he suffered to starve to death.—Those beautiful muses!

Yes, a few years after this, when the philosopher's heart was cold, and his ashes scattered to the winds, men in crowds paid to him honours such as they bestowed upon their gods. Statues were erected to him; nay, his very

house at Crotona was converted into a temple to Ceres. Men swore in his name, and appealed to him as to a divinity. Schools arose in every part of

the civilized world devoted to his disciples, and the Pythagorean principles, little as they are now known, formed one of the most widely disseminated creeds of the heathen world.

We would have spoken of Plato, but we have not space. We would have told how the philosopher, the descendant of Codrus, after having undergone a variety of vicissitudes, was sold as a slave by the tyrant Dionysius. How he again returned to the court at Syracuse, and was loaded with honours and distinctions, yet forgetting not his high calling as a philanthropist, in attempting to carry out the principles of his ideal republic, again encountered scorn, obloquy, and persecution. Peaceful, however, was the close of his life. He died at an advanced age in his native Athens. The grove and garden of that beautiful Academus where he had often discoursed divine philosophy afforded him a sepulchre. Statues and altars were erected to his memory, and the day of his birth was embalmed in festivals and songs.

And what, then, is the moral of all this, but that such men as Pythagoras and Plato, misguided and darkened as were their minds on many essential subjects, were prophetic intelligences preparing the way, and heralding the advent of One who was approaching to teach a sublimer truth and a more divine philosophy.

J. B.

DEATH PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME.

OFTEN have we felt it a solemn duty to enter our public protest against the demoralizing and unchristian practice of making the common hangman the great conservator of public morals, the executor of national and legislative wisdom for the repression of crime. We had indulged the hope that the manifest utter inutility of such irrational proceedings, and means for uprooting iniquity, had so impressed itself on the public mind, that our country would have been spared the repetition of an act whose only tendency is to debase and brutalize the population which it is proposed thereby to

alarm and overawe. Melancholy facts, which have taken place in this and other portions of Great Britain during the past twelve months, have not only shown that reliance on the so often boasted enlightenment and civilization of our common country was reliance on a baseless foundation, but has also again and again demonstrated, if anything can demonstrate, the preposterous nature of such exhibitions of blood, and their grossly inhuman and immoral tendency. The crimes for which our unhappy fellow-creatures suffered this dire penalty of human law may have been, and in one instance certainly were, of the blackest dye,-foul and atrocious in their conception, and most flagitious and sanguinary in their execution. There may not have been the slightest palliation for the iniquity of their deeds, save in the pitiable ignorance and wretchedly demoralized condition of great portions of the people : -deep-seated and prolific sources these both of individual and of national degradation and misery, which public executions may tend to strengthen and to indurate, but which they cannot, by possibility, remove and uproot. To destroy these crying evils, engendered by the inattention of government-of society-to its first and plainest duties, far other legislation than this is indispensable. The hearts of the people have been brutalized, and their moral affections perverted, for centuries, by military array, the death-volley, the gibbet, the cat-o'-nine-tails, the pillory, and the out-pouring of human blood like water at the dictation of the law, or caprice of their rulers. Perseverance in such means of extirpating crime is as useless as it is pernicious; more especially is it so if, contemporaneously, universal efforts are not put forth to enlighten the minds of the millions, and to uplift and better their temporal condition. Above all, it is so if, along with the condemnation of men to an infamous death, the officers of justice hold forth doctrines to their acceptance and reliance alien alike to the mental and moral constitution of man, and to the foundation principles of the morality of Christ. If the gallows be in truth. the stepping-place to heaven, and a fortnight's preparation, when the power and opportunity of committing

crime are taken away, be in reality sufficient to ensure the joys of eternity, a blow is inflicted on perseverance in well-doing, on a life devoted to personal goodness and Christian righteousness, which no solemnity of parade, no burnishing of arms, no complicated apparatus for ensuring the death of infamy, can possibly retrieve. The infamy of the temporal punishment is swallowed up in the contemplation of the eternal glory which awaits the criminal. Earth, with glaring inconsistency, snaps the cords of life of the individual, to whom the everlasting portals of heaven are opened to welcome among its saints, and Religion is prostituted and debased to the dust in becoming the pander to the immoral tragedy.

I

If

The judge in passing sentence affirms, "There is yet time and space for repentance, and for the spirit of Almighty God to work out salvation even for you, through the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. beseech you, then, to look to him for salvation, and to seek for it only through the blood of Jesus Christ." Yes, blood! blood is the burden of the whole story; blood guiltiness brought the criminal to the trial: the shedding of his own is to expiate his crime against the murdered, and society his avengers; and the blood of Jesus is to wash the whole from his stained and guilty soul. this be true, what necessity is there for a virtuous life? Keeping the commandments is no longer a pre-requisite to the bliss of eternity; profession of faith in the dying hour is the panacea for every atrocity. Murder, and profess faith in "the blood of Jesus Christ," and you are saved. If this be Christianity, we have read the gospels wrongly. If this be Christianity, holy and devoted men have toiled and suffered vainly. Benevolence, piety, holiness, ye are counterfeits: faith, faith is the one thing needful."

On this point, too, the directions of the judge are often followed up by the priest. The Lord's Supper is administered to the malefactor, as the sign and seal of salvation; and human justice then deprives him of life, that divine grace may receive him to glory.

The multitudinous throng who usually crowd this Aceldama, excited by that morbid curiosity which is ever