fact, that the Fathers of the Christian church were always obliged to prove their new doctrines by the authority of the Old Testament. Being so ready to borrow from Jewish opinions, they were almost compelled to take this course; and the interpretations of the Old Testament, by Barnabas, Ignatius, the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, and Origen, are partly borrowed from Philo, and partly formed on the model of his ; as Rosenmueller in his History of the Interpretation of the Sacred Books, has very clearly proved. From the same source were derived the strange interpretations of certain Gnostics, for instance, the Nicolaitans and Basilidians, who from Isaiah xxviii. 10, pp ("line upon line") formed the Eon zaviazávaş or zavhavzavz. (Irenæus, ed. Massuet, p. 102; Epiphanius, Hær. XXV. Opp. I. 79; Brucker Dissert. de Caulakau Basilidianorum in Museo Helvet. Part xxI. p. 229; Neander über die gnostischen Systeme, p. 85.) In general, allegory prevailed throughout the Christian church with but few exceptions; such as the author of the Recognitions of Clement, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Dionysius of Alexandria. Even the great progress of exegesis since the last ten years of the last century has not entirely banished allegorical interpretation.

It still remains for us to investigate the origin of allegorical interpretation among the Persians and the Turks. Among them too, it sprang from the conflict of philosophy with the popular religion. The mystic wisdom of the Persian and Turkish Sufis reached its height a considerable time after the diffusion of the Mohammedan religion, but its principles may be traced to the remotest antiquity; it appears to have grown up in part on the soil of India. It has a mixed theoretical and practical character, and seeks, partly through speculation and partly by the way of feeling, to reconcile the opposition between the divine unity and the existence of individual beings. The greater part of these mystics must be allowed to have a high degree of religious fervor. When this mystic philosophy comes in contact with Mohammedanism, it either takes an attitude of open opposition to it, or seeks to give its own spirituality to the sensual ideas of the Koran. In the midst of their religious fervor, most of them hold Mohammed in great esteem, and therefore the latter course is the more usual one. This process is very much facilitated by their custom of using a symbolic language, dealing in images drawn from objects of sense. 3D s. VOL. III. NO. II.

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They represent the divine unity as the object of supreme love, in which the individual longs to be swallowed up. The aspiration after a union with God is called by them ardent love; the enjoyment of the mystic union is typified by intoxication, kissing, or sexual intercourse. (See Tholuk's Sufismus, sive de Religione Persarum pantheisticà, p. 94 et seq.) It is easy. for them, therefore, to spiritualize the sensual pictures in the Koran of the joys of Paradise, &c. But what is more remarkable, this mysticism has been carried so far, that now, in the East, it is common to give a mystic meaning to the acknowledged love songs of Nisamis, Leila, Mejnoun, Youssouf, Zuleika, Hafez, and others. The Turks are particularly fond of this practice. Certain conclusions too have been drawn. from it respecting Solomon's Song, but such as show an ignorance of the true character of that work.

From the preceding investigation, I think we may with some confidence draw the conclusion, that when philosophical refinement comes in conflict with an antiquated form of popular faith which it dares not openly oppose, allegory is the result. Religious interests give rise to it; but it may subsequently be used and abused in various ways. Ignorance of languages and facts, inability to discriminate between the successive steps in the progress of mankind, and to contemplate an intellectual production with reference to the time of its origin, and as unaffected by the influences under which one's own intellect has grown up, continually give rise to allegorizing; while an opposite state of things is the best security against such a disposition.

E. W.

ART. III.— A Discourse at the Funeral of the Rev. JOHN PRINCE, LL. D., Senior Pastor of the First Church in Salem, on the Ninth of June, 1836. By CHARLES W. UPHAM, Surviving Pastor. Salem: 1836. 8vo. pp. 31.

It is with no ordinary regret and sadness of heart, that we behold that venerable company of ancients, whose hoary heads have so long graced the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational ministers, and who, there and everywhere, have so

nobly lifted up their voices and borne their testimony for truth and freedom, falling away one by one. It is sometimes numbered among the final causes of that law of Providence, according to which one generation passeth away and another cometh, that thus the prejudices of every successive generation are buried with it; those prejudices by which, otherwise, the progress of society and the human mind would be obstructed, and the world continue entangled for ever in the errors of the past. But the men of whom we are now speaking, can hardly be said ever to have had any prejudices, in the bad sense of that term. For, to the last, who amongst us all have been less disposed than they, to come to a period in religion; or who more ready, or more happy, to welcome from time to time whatever new light has broke forth out of God's holy word. This consolation, however, we have, that, after living through one of the most perturbed and eventful epochs in the history of the world, their sun has been permitted to go down in tranquil and serene heavens; and, as they have rested from their labors, they have not wanted those who knew how to cherish and record their virtues.

A summary of the principal incidents in the life of Dr. Prince is thus given by Mr. Upham.

"He was born in Boston on the 22d of July, 1751. His parents resided in the north part of the city, and were worthy and excellent members of the religious society now under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Parkman. They were of Puritan descent, and, as was the case with all who worthily claimed that name, were careful to give their son a good education, and to impress upon his mind a reverent sense of religious truth and duty. His father being a mechanic, the son naturally was intended and directed by him to similar pursuits. He was early bound out as an apprentice to a pewterer and tinman, and continued industriously and faithfully to labor in his calling until his indentures had expired.

"But his genius, from the beginning, had indicated a propensity to a different mode of life. From a child his chief enjoyments were found in books. He was wont to retire from the sports of boyhood. There was no play for him to be compared with the delight of reading. During the hours of leisure in the period of his apprenticeship, he sought no other recreation than in the acquisition of knowledge.

"It followed of course that, upon becoming free, he abandoned his trade and devoted himself to study. In a very short time he was prepared to enter college, and received his bachelor's degree at Cambridge in 1776, at the age of twenty-five. After leaving col

lege he was engaged for some time in the instruction of a school. He pursued the study of divinity under the direction of the Rev. Samuel Williams, of Bradford in this county, a clergyman highly distinguished for talents and attainments, afterwards Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Harvard University. He was ordained over this church on the 10th of November, 1779; Mr. Williams preaching the sermon, Mr. Diman of the East Church delivering the charge, and the late Dr. Barnard of the North Church giving the Right Hand of Fellowship. On the 8th of December, 1824, a colleague was settled with his concurrence. He died on the 7th of June, 1836, having nearly completed his eighty-fifth year. His ministry lasted fifty-seven years and seven months." pp. 6, 7.

Dr. Prince early distinguished himself by his mechanical ingenuity in improving the means and instruments of science. His friends will not claim for him extraordinary powers of rapid combination and generalization, by which new laws are discovered, and new theories and systems invented. Though well versed in Experimental Philosophy, and in some branches of Natural History, his mind was apt to rest in details. Hence his fame is left to depend, for the most part, on the sagacity with which he contrived, by mechanical means, to supply particular defects, or obviate particular difficulties, by which others had been baffled and foiled. Of this nature was the first successful effort of skill which brought him into notice; an important improvement in the construction of the Air Pump then in use, which he communicated to the scientific world in 1783, "just four years from the day of his ordination, when thirty-two years of age."

"The American philosopher," says his eulogist, "" was allowed to have surpassed all former attempts in the same department. His name is recorded by an eminent writer, in connexion with that of the famous Boyle, among those who have improved the instruments of science, and of whose labors we are now reaping the benefit.' The machine is still called by way of distinction, The American Air Pump,' and its figure was selected to represent a constellation in the heavens, and imprinted upon celestial globes."— p. 10.

His last work was of the same general nature. We can speak with lively recollections of the grateful, self-satisfied air, with which the venerable octogenarian would exhibit to his friends this proof that still his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. It consisted in a newly constructed stand for a large telescope.

"This," as Mr. Upham remarks, "was a great desideratum in science. As telescopes must be so made as to revolve in every direction, horizontally and perpendicularly, it had always before been supposed necessary to support them on a point, upon which it was found impossible to prevent a greater or less vibration, thus introducing uncertainty, to some extent, into the observations of astronomers. Dr. Prince contrived a stand, on which the telescope rests in a solid bed, with perfect firmness, and at the same time is movable in every direction and by the slightest touch of the finger. The following is the conclusion of the description given by him of this ingenious structure, as published by the American Academy, I made the brass work myself, and finished it on my birth-day, 80 years old.'"

pp. 10, 11.

Mr. Upham, in speaking of Dr. Prince's philosophical and literary correspondence, brings to light some facts, which illustrate in a striking manner his singular modesty and indifference to fame, and show, at the same time, that British ingenuity has been more indebted to suggestions from this quarter, than it would care publicly to acknowledge.

"It was his custom, when he had made an improvement in the construction and use of a philosophical instrument, instead of publishing it to the world, to communicate a full description of it, by private letter, to the principal instrument-makers in London. During his whole life, down to March 19th, 1836, the date of his last letter, to Samuel Jones, of London, he has, in this manner, been promoting the interests of science, while his agency, to a very great extent, has been unknown to the public.

"A long letter, occupying ten closely written pages, is found under the date of November 3d, 1792, addressed to George Adams, of London, and containing a full description of an improved construction of the Lucernal microscope. On the 3d of July, 1795, he wrote another letter to Mr. Adams, describing still further improvements in the same instrument. Without making any public acknowledgment of his obligations to Dr. Prince, Mr. Adams proceeded to construct Lucernal microscopes upon the plan suggested by him. Shortly after the death of Mr. Adams, which occurred in the latter part of 1795, an article appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine,' signed by John Hill, a distinguished cultivator of science, in which the importance of these improvements was shown at large, and illustrated by a plate. The writer stated that he had procured his instrument from Mr. Adams a short time before his death, and that Mr. Adams intimated to him, at the time, that he had been indebted for some important suggestions in its construction to a' clergyman.' The purpose of Mr. Hill's communication