we remember, by Hume, nor, we suspect, by any commonly-used writer. How much superfluous censure would have been spared had people but kept it in mind!

To take an instance to which we have already referred, a point, indeed, where Hume has no warmth of censure to bestow, but whereon most of us have abundantly made up for his apathy-the retention of the Scriptures and the Liturgy in the dead languages. That such practice, where it exists, has not much to say for itself in the present day, may perhaps be safely conceded; and its continuance, where continued still, must be allowed to have at least the air of hierarchical jealousy. But how different does the same practice seem in its original circumstances, and as sketched by the no less truthful than charitable pen of Sir F. Palgrave.

'Throughout great part of Europe, there was a strong prejudice against the employment of the vernacular tongues as written languages. The "Romance"* dialects of Gaul and Spain and Italy were broken Latin, or the dialects into which it had been corrupted, first by the provincials, and afterwards by the barbarian conquerors of the Roman empire. Spanish has been described with some drollery and truth, as such Latin as might have been heard from the mouth of a sulky Roman slave. And the ground-work of all these Romance languages, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, Italian,-is in fact only the Latin, mangled, and deprived of its grammatical forms and grammatical construction, and then copiously interspersed with words derived from barbarian sources :-Teutonic, Celtic, Vascon, and even Sclavonic, all having contributed to the compound. By cultivation, these irregular dialects have acquired beauty and elegance; but, to the learned, who, though they may have been deficient in critical nicety, were quite familiar with the correct forms of the Latin language, these patois must have sounded as ludicrous as the talkee talkee of our negroes in the colonies, to which they bear the closest analogy. Such a language might be, and was applied to the oral instruction of the common people, from the necessity of the case; and discourses were delivered from the pulpit in what was termed "the rustic tongue." But the employment of this jargon in a literary composition, would have seemed as derogatory to the writer. Still less could they venture to employ it in translations of the Holy Scriptures; for they feared that the dignity of the sacred writings would be profaned by the association of ideas arising from a plebeian idiom, bearing the stamp of ignorance and vulgarity.

There are few transgressions more seductive to us all, than that disrespectful treatment of the word of God which is, to all intents and

* This term was constantly applied to the languages formed as noticed in the text; and Romance, in Spanish, is still employed as synonymous to Castilian, or the vulgar tongue.'

purposes, a breach of the third commandment; and we are therefore bound to guard ourselves against the error with the most watchful care. It is of the greatest importance that we should resist the temptation, frequently so strong, of annexing a familiar, facetious, or irreverent idea to a scriptural usage, a scriptural expression, a scripture text, or a scripture name. Nor should we hold ourselves guiltless, though we may have been misled by mere negligence or want of reflection. Every person of good taste will avoid reading a parody or a travestie of a beautiful poem, because the recollection of the degraded likeness will always obtrude itself upon our memories, when we wish to derive pleasure from the contemplation of the elegance of the original. But how much more urgent is the duty, by which we are bound to keep the pages of the Bible clear of any impression tending to diminish the blessing of habitual respect and reverence towards our Maker's law!

'We must therefore admit that the general principle, which induced the clergy of Gaul and Spain and Italy to avoid clothing the Scriptures in what they considered a degrading garb, was right and sound; but the particular application of that principle was evidently incorrect.'-Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, pp. 163–165.

We have said that the Teutonic nations are a partial exception to this remark, as having independent languages, however inadequate; and in reference to this the teacher will call careful attention to the interesting fact of our Saxon forefathers having possessed and used large portions of Holy Writ in their own tongue.

In the different periods of English History after the Conquest, the teacher will do well to give interest and liveliness to their records from various sources; pointing out where the means are afforded, the characteristic architecture of each, and showing in what present forms and institutions any great movement of each has been embodied. When engaged with the reigns of Edward III., and Richard II., parts of Chaucer should be read; the historical plays of Shakspeare, where they are appropriate; and Shakspeare, Spenser, parts of Bacon, &c., when the learner has come to the reign of Elizabeth. Whatever distinct domestic or private facts, such as both Sir F. Palgrave and Mr. Maitland shine in discovering, can be made to apply, ought also to be told, and fallacies of classification, such as we spoke of some way back, guarded against by pointing out the facts and dates which disturb them.

Now, it is easy to see that this method, which of course admits of far more varied illustration than we have space to

bring forward, applied through a very small part of any one history, will do much, both to excite inquiry and fix the love of Fact and Reality in the mind of an intelligent lad of the age supposed; that such will be probably led to further questions

and penetrating thought; will look for further Reality than is presented by ordinary histories; will suspect commonplace accounts of the ambition of prelates, and the luxury of monks; will learn to feel how impossible it is but that there should be other elements in the grave questions that have divided men, in times past, than are recognised by the Robertsons, Humes, and Gibbons of modern literature.

II. The teacher's next desideratum will be to present historical facts in their reciprocal connexion, and in their unity of scope. And here, if he trust to mere literature, his difficulties will be even greater than in the former case; while, if he take a higher and better guide, he will find the labour considerably less. Did we know of no Divine element, no theocratic principle in History, we might well content ourselves with a search after some of its facts; and, after arriving at a fair proportion of these, decline the task of connecting or classifying them. Every one must feel the risk that there is of a philosophical history,-one that professes to connect events with their causes, and trace recorded actions, triumphs, and changes to their principles,--being more fanciful than solid. But the Christian teacher can, if he like, do something of this sort, with no such danger. He sees a main stem of the world's history, whereof all particular histories are but branches. The Christian Church, the Heavenly Kingdom supplies him with a central point of view, whence he can take in the whole panorama: and on this principle, and on no other, will he teach History. The mighty and terrible Image before which the Babylonian sovereign quailed, the fourfold Vision of the captive Prophet will afford him his clue. He will lead his pupil to gaze inquiringly on the sight of an Universal Empire -will try to show him what cravings of the ruled and conquered, no less than the ruler and conqueror, render such a thing possible; to what great Truth those cravings point; and how God made those empires, dark and portentous substitutes for such Truth as in themselves they were, the means of its development. He will carefully trace the progress of the Heavenly and Divine Kingdom amid those empires; nor will he quit the history of Israel, as is too commonly done, just where, for wise reasons, it is quitted by Canonical Scripture; but guiding his pupil through a part of history by far too much neglected by ordinary people, that of the Macedonian empire after Alexander, he will show him how wonderfully God's Providence arranged that, when the fulness of time was drawing near and the Universal Society about to be instituted, the land of sacred history and the regions around were made European by becoming Greek; how the Divine Kingdom seemed on the point of being ingulfed in the Greek Polytheism; how it arose unhurt from the struggle

and developed itself afresh; and how, as the Greek mind was now spread through the East, the Jewish mind was spread throughout it too, so that from their interpenetration might ensue a diffused preparation for the Catholic faith, while the rising empire of Rome, which was embracing all this part of the Earth, was also pushing its conquests Westward, and about to bring the shores of the Atlantic and our own distant isle into the pale of World History.

So much for the teacher's methods. We will now say a few words on some collateral points. Besides such mere intellectual fallacies as we have been pointing out, there are others partly moral against which it will be necessary for him to guard the learner.

How

In the first place, he will warn him against the common practice of judging historical personages, determining absolutely whether such and such people were good or bad men. common this is, let the frequent subjects of conversation bear witness. From Julius Cæsar down to Charles I. there is a succession of people about whom we argue as warmly as if anything depended on the suffrages we could win for them, and who are exalted to the skies and trodden under foot by their partisans and their opponents respectively. Intellectual children do the same, but often, as is the case with children in so many things, in a far wiser form. 'Do not you like such an one?' they say; Do not you dislike another?' a much more modest way of putting the question. What? When we dare not judge our neighbour whom we see every day, when we are bound to abstain from determining his precise position in the moral and spiritual world, when we feel it our part to see and be thankful for the evidences of Divine Grace which he presents, and to own that we have no means of measuring the difficulties with which he is beset, and therefore have no right to be severe on his imperfections, how can we pronounce on departed men, of whom it is antecedently probable that they presented the same tissue of characteristics, good mixed with deplorable inconsistency and weakness, as is done by the people about us; with this only difference, that in the one case we have, and in the other we have not, a thousand interpretive phenomena ? And here again History and Travelling correspond. The hasty traveller forgets that he is even more bound to be lenient in his judgments abroad than at home, as having less access to the interpreting and often extenuating circumstances. The man of another country and the man of another age are necessarily somewhat perplexing to us; and in both cases we must remember that the imperfections and faults which we theoretically admit to be found in a

good man are often connected with the unquestioned maxims. and customs around, instead of being the choice of the will, and that as those maxims and customs vary, so will the form taken by human imperfection.

A judicious teacher, therefore, will guard his pupil against determining in reference to by-gone people, that which is only to be authoritatively determined of any one at the Great Day of Judgment. On the other hand he will cheerfully point out to him the power and the reality of Holiness, he will direct his attention to the satisfactory symptom of a mixed character like that of King Charles, rising with time and trial; and he will rejoice with him in those which illuminate every age of Christian history, and in which hardly any disturbing or disfiguring element mars our satisfaction. And as he warns him against judging the persons, so will the teacher restrain him from too peremptory decisions on the actions, of bygone men. Crime must indeed remain ever the same, and must be avoided equally by the men of all ages; and "the primal duties shine aloft like stars," and must, therefore, be in some measure obeyed alike in all times by all men on whom we are to bestow any amount of approbation. But the line of conduct adopted by the historical character in less obvious cases-the mode of action which must be wise and good, or evil and foolish, according to circumstances -is a matter on which, as regards the agent, our judgments have no such undoubted jurisdiction. True, we can see that the leaders of two opposite sides were each contending for half truths; that each missed the harmonizing whole truth by refusing to listen to the other; that each fought under a great disadvantage in consequence; and that the absolute success of either would have been a calamity instead of a good. It is easy for us to judge that Laud's attempted triumph of a Church detached from the great Catholic mass, and in a state of internal distraction and disease, to be achieved by means of monarchical ascendancy, would have been an ill-omened victory, which would have recoiled sooner or later upon the Church and country. But how was Laud, unless endowed either with a mind of miraculous comprehension, or with Prophetic Vision, to see the same? It is clear to us, not because we are more moderate, more judicious, more practical than he, but because we know two hundred years of history which he did not and could not know. Men cannot be expected to see what will be the final issues of the things going on around them. While on earth, they must miss the harmony into which the conflicting principles amid the strife of which they have to play their parts, may perchance be developed. Meanwhile, they must act, and act according to what they are enabled