an ardent glance; but, alas! we must bend to so many influences beyond our own control!' "Six weeks afterwards, this laughing, scoffing beauty was bent low in sadness and sorrow. She had in that short period lost "Not a whit,' retorted the lively lady, her husband and her three sons, all of whom """Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied were suddenly carried off by a virulent fever. (every one forges his own happiness), saith It is not known whether she connected this the proverb.' sad bereavement with her imprudent act, "How can you say that fairest of châte- but probably her haughty scepticism received laines, when you know that the happiness of a shock, for she renounced the world, and each of us is dependant upon your good-ever after led a life of sorrow and seclusion. will,' responded one of the gallants. Thus ended the Red line of the Alvensle "And,' added the Major von Eulenberg, a somewhat more sedate admirer, 'you yourself, madame, must not forget that you are living under the spell of the famous Alvensleben ring; if you were to lose it, who knows what might happen.' "Alter schützt von Thorheit nicht' (age is no preservative against folly) 'I see,' answered the beauty, pertly tossing her head. 'Do you think I am such an idiot as really to believe in this silly story of the ring? I thought my sentiments were better known, and to prove to you how free from superstition I am' she ran into the room through the open folding-doors, hastily unlocked a casket with a small golden key which hung from her neck chain, and swiftly returning, made a comical low curtsey to the circle of gentlemen, and, with a graceful movement, flung what she had in her hand down into the rushing river at her feet: 'There,' she cried, exultingly, 'there goes the token of old superstition, which has too long been treasured in our family; there goes the famous ring, and may the Alvenslebens evermore depend upon themselves for their good luck and prosperity.' "The act was greeted with bravoes, and warm expressions of admiration at the strength of mind she had exhibited, by the young officers, whose only wish was to flatter and please the star of the day: yet some in their hearts disapproved, others felt as if a blank had fallen upon their spirits, and though outwardly merry, the party separated with far less jovial feelings than they had ever before experienced within the walls of Randau. bens. "The members of the Black line, shocked by this sad occurrence, and fearful lest some accident might cause the loss of so small an object as the third part of a ring, had it melted among other gold and moulded into a goblet or 'Pokal,' which the sole survivors of that line still possess. Their star, however, has fallen, and from the prosperous and numerous family which then flourished, and was in possession of nearly half the province of Magdeberg, but two descendants in middling circumstances now exist. The last member of importance of that line, was the highly esteemed Minister of State under Frederick Wilhelm III., Count Albert Alvensleben, who died at so late a period as 1858. "The members of the White line have been the wisest of the three; they still carefully preserve among the family archives in their Castle of Erxleben, near Magdeberg, their precious share of the little dwarf's present. This family is amongst the most highly esteemed and beloved of the old noblesse of Prussia: highly favored and truly loved by their monarch, many of them still hold important offices in the army and state, and the White line still counts thirty or forty members." It was not without regret that we broke up the circle round the coffee-table; these and other tales had made us forget the flight of time, and if they have for a moment amused my readers, I am richly repaid for the slight trouble of transcribing them. But if oaths may be pardoned it's when they're let fly At a rogue who would make you his tool and ally. Vite en carosse, vite à la noce! Monsieur Fontinallat having blazed like a bomb, Informed poor Patroclus (with horror struck dumb) That having imparted his notions at large, He should seek his hotel and await his discharge. Vite en carosse, vite à la noce! It came in an hour-ere another had past dove, From The Spectator. FIRST NOTICE. a type, as it were, of the difficulties and perplexities which beset the men of the nineteenth century, and perceive in history nothLas Casas during a debate on the iniquity ing but the struggle of the human soul of subjecting the American Indians to toil with "foes," whose "faces” may now, inand slavery was hard pressed by some monk- deed, be slightly "new," but who are in ish casuists, who pleaded in support of the their nature old. The eighteenth century right possessed by one, race to enslave an- drew unconsciously even nearer to heathenother the revered names of Plato and Aris-ism than does the nineteenth. The imagitotle. The philanthropist could not restrain his indignation at this line of argument, and wondered that Christian men could refer to the authority of writers who were themselves undoubtedly burning in the fires of hell. No one could impeach the Spaniard's orthodoxy, and his inference as to the condition of the two greatest philosophers who have enlightened the world was the most logical of deductions from the most undoubted premises of the narrow orthodoxy. His expressions, nevertheless, shocked the best feelings of the theologians of his own age, and are felt to need some sort of apology when recorded by his modern eulogists. He brought out in its plainest colors a contradiction of sentiment which subsists in the minds of almost all men, but of which most persons are little more than half conscious. Heathendom wears two different aspects. Clergymen in their pulpits dilate on the folly, the vice, and the ignorance which degraded the heathen world. The same men when they turn from a parish congregation to a class of University pupils adopt a different tone. In each line of Plato they find a foreshadowing of Christianity. Aristotle's name crushes their judgment by the weight of his reputation, for no long time has passed since Oxford lecturers hunted in the Stagyrite's works for arguments in favor of human corruption or of baptismal regeneration. In all this there is no hypocrisy. The same contradiction may be traced in the opinions entertained by different writers and by different ages concerning those times, of which we know at once so much and yet so little, before the triumph of Christianity divided history by a gulf which neither genius nor learning finds it easy to bridge over. Of recent years authors such as Mr. Kingsley discover in the circumstances and passions which influenced the Pagans of Alexandria The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ. From the German of J. J. I. Döllinger. By the Rev. N. Darnell, M.A. 2 vols. Longman. native mind attempted to recall the scenery which surrounded Epictetus or Tully, and in the whole phraseology and thoughts which marked the moralists of the day there are traces of heathen parentage. Even Butler shows as much sign of the influence exercised over him by Epictetus as of the effect produced on him by the writings of St. Paul. Johnson's morality does not appear very dissimilar from the prudential ethics which may be supposed to have guided the conduct of Cato the Censor, and in the pages of the Spectator are embodied quotations from stoic philosophers, mingled with extracts apparently equally unknown to its readers from Solomon's Proverbs or from Job. A whole generation drew its moral sustenance from diluted renderings of Cicero's Offices, and when the eighteenth century terminated in the French Revolution, the men and women who aimed to reform the world were, one and all, like Madame Roland, imbued with the rhetoric and the principles of Plutarch. No one can venture either to disdain the influence of heathendom, or, on the other hand, to deny that, in spite of this influence which can be traced in the arts, the morals, and the religion of the Christian world, there does indeed exist a sharp contrast between the ages of pagan darkness and the time of Christian light. What students who cannot be contented by mere words which convey little impression demand is an investigation into the nature of heathendom which may bring forth both the lights and the shades of the ancient world, which, in other words, can show both why Plato and Cicero may still claim our reverence; and why, at the same time, it was a true and enormous step in the progGalilean fishermen swept away the system ress of humanity when the preaching of which had nourished the patriotism of Pericles and the exalted virtues of Marcus Antoninus. To give the results of such an examina tion is the object of M. Döllinger's work. youth. Priests existed, but no organized He has attempted, to use his own words, body such as since the rise of Christianity "to represent the Paganism of the period has been known as the priesthood. Sacriprevious to our Lord with at least an effort at completeness, the sketch embracing the heathen religious system, heathen modes of thought and speculation, heathen philosophy, life, and manners as far as they were severally connected with the religion, were determined by it and reacted upon it in their turn." In a certain sense he has succeeded. In his book is contained a mass of information which nothing short of German learning and German industry could have brought together. Readers, if they find in it none of those flashes of insight by which Hegel occasionally throws a gleam of light over the whole tendencies of an era, and none of those humorous touches in which Mommsen explains the feelings of the ancient world through analogies drawn from modern life, are still rewarded by obtaining a knowledge of facts which the lifetime of an ordinary individual would scarcely suffice to collect. M. Döllinger has written a book which all students of ancient religions will be compelled to consult. Many of his opinions and conclusions deserve criticism, but an author of his learning and research claims to have his opinions clearly stated before they are made the subject either for eulogy or censure. fices were universal; but though the idea of expiation was not entirely foreign to them, and is even prominent in those human offerings which, according to M. Döllinger, were more frequent than is ordinarily supposed, they were rather occasions for festivity than means of atonement, and in many cases the popular notion obviously was that the sacrifice was a feast wherein gods and men each took a part. Oracles again, or auguries, were general; but little moral significance attached to the character of a prophet, and generally ethics and religion occupied, as it were, distinct spheres. Even when moral philosophy arose, the opposition between its teachings and the doctrines of the received creeds was but indistinctly recognized. The priests of the temple, since their influence did not depend upon the support of moral doctrines, were little inclined to condemn ethical speculations as heresy. Socrates might have easily escaped death; and it is typical of the slight opposition of his views to the prevailing religion that his last injunction was to pay a sacrifice to Esculapius. Changes in the condition of the world, the progress of speculation, and, above all, the spread of the Roman empire, wrought a The history of Paganism divides itself gradual revolution in the whole condition of into two great periods, which, though their the heathen religious world. Philosophy limits cannot be very accurately drawn, are inevitably encroached upon the domain of distinguished from each other by very clearly religion. The teachers of the Porch or of defined characteristics. Paganism, in its the Garden were far inferior in intellectual earlier stage, may be described as natural power to Plato or Aristotle; but the quesheathenism. Whilst the world was yet tions which occupied their minds were individed into numerous states, each country quiries far more akin to the problems which held to its separate gods and its different have perplexed and harassed modern metamodes of worship, and the idols of Greece physicians and moralists than were the inor Egypt were as little connected with one tellectual enigmas proposed for solution in another or with the gods of Rome as were the groves of the Academy. The nature of the citizens who listened to the speeches of free will, the power of Providence, the existPericles with the Romans who, about the ence of God, the relation of man to God, the same period, were occupied in remodelling respect due from philosophers to the religion the laws of their city. Of course there of the people, were all topics which agitated were, during this condition of the world, in- the minds of men after the fall of Grecian finite differences between the religious usages freedom and before the Roman Republic of various races. Still certain features were gave place to the empire. As centuries common to all the heathen institutions of at rolled on Paganism itself was so revolutionleast the western world during the first stage ized that the heathenism which was overof pagan development. Unconsciousness thrown by Christianity was essentially diswas the main trait of heathendom during its | tinct from the religion of either Greece or Rome, in the days of their youth and vigor. |into cunning, and the countrymen of Socrates The gods of all nations had met and mingled and Thucydides became the basest of sycoat the Capitol; Isis and Anubis claimed phants to Roman masters. Rome herself more worshippers at Rome than the Capi- fell nearly as low as the races she had contolean Jupiter. Strange rites of expiation, quered. Bravery degenerated into brutalthe Taurobolium and the Criobolium, were ity, and combats of gladiators occupied citiinvented to appease the growing sense of zens who had ceased to do battle for the human guilt and misery. Soothsayers, as-state. Slavery ate up the vitals of the peotronomers, and magicians, swarmed in every ple, and the grossest immorality, whilst it corner of the empire; and whilst philosophy degraded both men and women, made maritself became mixed up with Theurgy, tales riage an intolerable burden, and the increase abounded of the gods appearing once more of the population an impossibility. On the to their worshippers. The unconsciousness 19th of December, B.C. 69, the Roman and the gayety of the pagan world had de- capital was consumed by fire, kindled by serted it and left but a sense of sin without Roman hands. When, ten months later, knowledge of any certain means of atonement, and a desire for happiness without the hope either of liberty in this world or of bliss in another. M. Döllinger concludes his account of heathendom with an estimate of the moral results flowing from Pagan life and institutions. The picture he draws is a dark one. All the intellect of Greece gradually sank the Temple at Jerusalem was also reduced to ashes, if Romans and Jews of the first century saw but a spark of the hatred of heaven to man, modern writers may be pardoned for perceiving the sign, as it were, that the days of heathenism were numbered, and "that ground was to be cleared for the worship of God in spirit and in truth." THE MONOGRAM. The monogram on the leading private firms. A few days ago, some sacred standard of Constantine became for a of the most eminent ship-builders of Liverpool long time conspicuous on Christian monuments waited on Mr. Turner with a desire of nego in the East and West, and is now carved on which they are about to construct for the purtiating permission to adopt his principle in ships most of the sepulchral tablets of modern Italy. Yet there is a mystery about what it really poses of the American war. The single cupola means, without a pretence of anything miracu- to be fitted on the deck of Mr. Turner's new lous as to the way in which it came to be used. ship will require no turn-table or other machinIt is doubtful whether any one besides the Em-ery, and will contain twenty-six guns, capable peror himself can have known whether he took its upper part to represent the Latin letter P, or the Greek one for R. The great comparative prominence of the said upper part on early monuments, joined to Constantine's ignorance of Greek, inclines us to the former opinion, and perhaps Eusebius as an enthusiastic Oriental gave rise to the latter. There is some evidence that the Roman Emperor Probus brought the monogram, or something like it, from Egypt in the third century. His name and virtues perhaps suggested the appropriation of a sign which had long before been attached to representations of the more popular members of the Ptolemaic dynasty.-Once a Week. of being fired at any required point or deflec- transmitted to him for the service of his own country. The ship to be built after Mr. Turner's design will carry 8,700 displacement burden, and will be a most formidable ram, having a powerful weapon of eight feet in length proSHIP-MAKING IN ENGLAND FOR THE REB-jecting three feet under the water-line. PreELS. -The model of the fixed cupola and armor-plated ship, invented by Mr. Tarner, master shipwright of Woolwich dockyard, has been inspected and approved by numbers of the cautions are adopted to have her rudder, sternpost, and propeller thoroughly immersed, and, consequently, out of the reach of damage from without.-Liverpool Times. |