the globe. The depraved national feeling of the Romans could not, it is true, be regenerated by this divine doctrine, which, indeed, had no such object. The Romans, as a nation, were to perish. To this the course of history had doomed them; but in their fall they became the benefactors of mankind, the teachers of their conquerors. The haughty, rude, but uncorrupted sons of Nature, bowed to the dust before the cross, presented to them by the vanquished Romans, whose sword they had broken. As the Christian faith was not originally intended to be propagated by conquest, its diffusion through the vast Roman empire, which was shortly to be subverted, was a circumstance highly favourable to the moral transformation of mankind. The Roman prescripts would, of themselves, have been insufficient to tame the wild minds of the barbarians; but, when combined with the gospel law, their influence gradually rendered those minds susceptible of civilization. How different from this was the operation of Islamism, which spread, like a running fire, over the whole eastern world, and rendered its adherents victors, it is true, yet, in many instances, destroyers of civilization; while Christianity made haughty conquerors captives to the cross, and members of civilized states! The duration of Arabian culture, short as it was, suffices to show that it did not emanate from Islamism. It was a meteor called forth by the prototypes of ancient classical culture, and by the wondrous juvenile enthusiasm of a nation, whose fancy was as rich and

exuberant, as their sun-burnt plains were barren and desolate; and, meteor-like, it vanished. The Turks have not advanced a single step in civilization since the conquest of Constantinople, except what they have gained by their political and commercial relations with Europe: and thus we have an historical proof, that Islamism could exercise no lasting influence on the mental formation of mankind; but that, on the contrary, it has kept its adherents longer in the trammels of irreligion and barbarism than even the Pagan creeds did with theirs.

Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman culture were necessary, in order to prepare mankind for Christian wisdom. In the early ages, man either felt himself to be one of a distinct caste, as was the case with the Hindoos and Egyptians; or he deemed himself a member of a nation, specially favoured by God, as did the Jews; or he boasted of his denizenship in a state which regarded the rest of their contemporaries as barbarians, like the Greeks and Romans. And it were vain to deny that to this selfishness much of the energy, by which the ancient nations are so strikingly distinguished from the moderns, is attributable. But while civilization advanced, men's views became more extended; as, in the individual, every degree of cultivation, however partial, strengthens the mental power. It was requisite that the human race should pass through the different periods of improvement, in order to exercise their strength, and to prepare the boy for the deeds of youth; but

through all the stages of progression, a continual and growing, though undefined, desire for a more satisfying futurity, evinced the consciousness that what had been already enjoyed, felt, and thought, was insufficient for the deeply acknowledged want of a higher moral state. Fancy and intellect, the two characteristic qualities of the mind among the ancients, at length exhausted themselves. Fancy could find nothing which intellect did not crush; nor could intellect create any thing to appease the suffering mind. The love of freedom and country was destroyed, and all was vacancy, when the revival of those feelings was effected by the one sentiment of love to the Creator, which had hitherto been unperceived, or indistinctly known. All love, all noble sentiments, were concentrated in this great pervading principle; and thus feeling and sentiment became the ruling elements in the human mind, instead of fancy and intellect, which, during the classical period, had predominated. With the awakening of this power in the soul, by the propagation of Christianity, the regeneration of mankind and the career of its youth begin.

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Man now occupies a higher eminence. longer appertains to an exclusive caste, nor to a people especially favoured by God, nor to a republic distinguished by its customs and laws. The feeling of love, of which he has now a clear conception, leads him to adore a common Father, who, in the spirit of love, embraces all his creatures with the same pa

ternal fondness. Man now beholds a brother in his fellow-man. He despises not the love of freedom and of country, those mighty levers of Paganism; but they are comprehended in the one feeling of love to his Creator, which embraces that of freedom, country, state, mankind.

I have already stated, that this change could only have been effected by gradual advances, and not by sudden transition. In the middle ages, we even meet with appearances which cause a fear lest mankind might retrograde: yet these are but appearances. Amidst blood and tears, the genius of mankind struggles onward for perfection; and there is no rest, still less can there be return. We often find that the first ten centuries of the Christian era are termed the dark ages, and described as having been plunged in barbarism; an opinion which, to me, appears questionable, inasmuch as, from century to century, we per ceive the light of higher cultivation, slowly and faintly indeed, but increasingly, brightening above the ruins of Roman grandeur. The northern hordes, who rushed from their forest haunts, to the destruction of the old world and the foundation of the new, were assuredly barbarians, as compared with the sensual, enervated, but refined Romans; yet the influence of Christianity imperceptibly softened their primitive rudeness, and, in the cultivation which succeeded it, we have an instance, that the harder the material, the more highly it may be polished.

The elements of the Roman character, as far as

they could be conveyed by language, laws, and some scanty relics of science and art, passed into the political and civil life of the new adventurers, and had no small influence on the culture of the western states. We now see the youth stand forward, having laid aside whatever is boyish. We frequently find him misguided by overpowering feeling,-led astray by passion; but this serves only as a preparatory struggling for his inward and outward improvement, and his better nature always gains the ascendancy within him.

We may here comprehend all the western nations under one view, taking them as a collective people; for, with the exception of the Slavonians, the descent of these different nations is, more or less, in common; and this proceeding will be further justified by the similarity of character prevailing among them, and by the analogous course of their moral and political improvement. I have no wish to deny the peculiar character of every nation; but the general family likeness, if I may so call it, among the western peoples of German origin, still remains, and for the purpose of our present consideration, their history is one and the same. Poetry and chivalry, feudalism and hierarchy, crusades and the reformation, are historical subjects, which, with all the occidental peoples, are represented by similar features and influences. A chord struck at one extremity of Europe resounded through the whole of western Christendom; and thus the Christian doctrine pervaded those nations with a