Eurytos, Cresphontes-and above all, with the unanimous voice of the whole nation, to Aristomenes, whose statues, adorned the square and principal sanctuaries of the city.

I said that the walls, with their square or round towers and double gates, are in excellent preservation, and exhibit the finest specimens of military architecture in Greece;— nay, they make us, as it were, the cotemporaries of Epaminondas, under whose direction they were raised, by exhibiting to us a complete model of the systematic fortifications of that age. The walls are built in horizontal courses, with huge right angular stones. Almost all the towers are square built, in two stories, with windows and embrasures, splayed on the inside to admit more light and afford a freer range for the emission of the projectiles from within. Particularly beautiful is the large north-western gate, which led to Arcadia; it incloses a court sixty-three feet in diameter, in the wall of which is a niche for a statue, on each side of the gate. The outer gate between its huge flanking towers is in good preservation; but on the inner door the soffit, an immense stone twenty feet in length has fallen, so as to rest against the side of the door-way. The rich vegetation of shrubs and trees around, and the magnificent back-ground of Mount Ithome, with its deep clefts and bold precipices, altogether form one of the most picturesque views in that land of beauty and poetry.

At the time of the French expedition in the Morea, in 1828, Colonel Bory de Saint-Vincent undertook extensive excavations within the range of the walls, where a number of precious antiquities were found; nay, the greater part of the ancient city, below the fountain of Mauromati or BlackEye-the ancient Klepsydra-were laid open; the stadium, theatre, several temples, baths, streets, numerous basreliefs and architectural ornaments were discovered-but so rich is the soil of happy Messeria, so exuberant the growth of her vegetation, that almost all these curiosities have vanished beneath the thick groves of myrtle, laurel, agnus-castus, lentesk, juniper, wild olive, and a hundred other odorous and beautiful shrubs, while the industrious

of God.

By HORACE BUSHNELL. New York: Charles Scribner. 1858. A truly interesting work, as may be easily presumed at once from its authorship and title. No subject could well be more important, especially for the present time, than that which is here brought into view; and there are few men better fitted than Dr. Bushnell to discuss any theme of the sort in an earnest, vigorous, and manly way. We welcome the book, with all our heart, as a most valuable accession to the theological literature of the age, and trust that it may exert a large and wide influence in the service of truth. It is no hasty production, but the carefully studied and well digested treatment of a great question, which has been before the mind of the author for years, and

on which plainly he has bestowed the whole force of his ripest and best thoughts. The book, therefore, is one which requires study also on the part of the reader. It is not just of the current literature sort, formed for the easy entertainment of the passing hour. It grapples with what the writer holds to be the religious life question of the age; its course is everywhere, more or less, through inquiries which are felt to be both intricate and profound. And yet with all this, the work is never either heavy or dull. On the contrary, it may be said to overflow with genial life. Dr. Bushnell has contrived to throw into it the full vivacity and freshness of his own nature. It is rich throughout with thoughts that breathe, and words that glow and burn. A sort of poetical charm is made to suffuse the entire progress of its argument, relieving the severity of the discussion, and clothing it oftentimes with graphic interest and force. Altogether the book is one which deserves to live, and that may be expected to take its place, we think, among the enduring works of the age. It is of an order, in this view, with Hugh Miller's Testimony of the Rocks; and as an argument for the truth of the Christian religion, may compare vorably with Reinhard's Plan of the Founder of Christian

So much we may say, without pretending to endorse in full the course of thought presented in Dr. Bushnell's book. The worth and importance of such a work are not to be measured simply by what may be considered the validity of its opinions at particular points. We may find reason to question many of its propositions-we may feel ourselves constrained to pause doubtfully in the presence of much to which it challenges our assent—and yet be fairly and rightly bound, notwithstanding, to own and honor its superiority, as shown in the profound significance of its general thesis, the reigning scope of its discussion, the reach and grasp of its argument taken as a whole. The claim to such respectful homage, in the case before us, is one in regard to which there can be no dispute.

We

agree fully with Dr. Bushnell, in believing the ten

dency of the present time to be fearfully strong toward Rationalism that form of infidelity, which seeks to destroy Christianity, not so much in the way of direct opposition to its claims, as by endeavoring to drag it down from its own proper supernatural sphere into the sphere of mere nature, making it thus to be nothing more in the end than a particular phase simply of natural religion itself. On both sides of the Atlantic, we find a large amount of intelligence enlisted openly in the defence of this view; seeking, with no small measure of learning and ingenuity, to resolve all the higher aspects of the Gospel into poetry and myth, and pretending to bring out the full sense of it at last in the experiences of a purely humanitarian culture. But it would be a most inadequate view of the case, to suppose the evil of such unbelief confined to any formal demonstrations of this sort. As a silent tendency-a power secretly at work to sap the foundations of faith and pietythe rationalistic spirit in question takes in a vastly wider range of action. Multitudes, as Dr. Bushnell observes, are involved in it virtually as a system of thought, without being themselves aware of the fact. They profess to honor Christianity as a divine revelation, take its language famil iarly upon their lips, persuade themselves it may be that they continue strictly loyal to its heavenly authority; and yet all the time they are false in fact to its claims, casting it down from its proper excellency, and substituting for it in their minds another order of thought altogether. In this way, we are surrounded on all sides with a nominal Christianity, which is little better in truth than a sort of baptized Paganism, putting us off continually with heathenish ideas expressed in Christian terms.

Our public life is full of such essential infidelity. It reigns in our politics. It has infected our universal literature. The periodical press floods the land with it every week. It makes a merit generally indeed of being friendly to religion; but it is plain enough to see, that what it takes to be religion is something widely different from the old faith of the Gospel in its strictly supernatural form. It is,

when all is done, naturalism only, of the poorest kind, dressed up in evangelical modes of speech. That it should be able to pass current for any thing better-that the public at large, the so called Christian public, should show itself so widely willing to accept any such authority as having any sort of force in matters of religion-is only itself a most painful sign of that general weakening of faith, of which we are now speaking as the great moral malady of the times. Already too the disease has entered deep into our systems of education; and there is but too much reason to fear, that its worst fruit on this ground is yet to come.

Our system of public schools is often spoken of, as being the strength of our institutions, the safeguard of our liberties, the crown of our civilization, the distinguishing glory of our truly enlightened age. But we hazard nothing in saying, that it proceeds from beginning to end, not on the believing recognition of the supernatural claims of Christianity, but on their virtual rejection and denial. It does not help the matter in the least, that it offers no formal contradiction to the idea of revealed religion; the burden of the difficulty lies just here, that claiming, as Christianity does, to be a supreme authority for men's minds, it is notwithstanding prohibited by the system from the exercise of any such authority in what is allowed on all hands to be a fundamental interest of our life-that it is politely bowed to the one side, and made to stand out of the way, while another theory of religion altogether is practically introduced into its place. The case is too clear for any controversy. Education, to be Christian, must make earnest with the realities of a higher life in their own true and proper form, subordinating all merely natural and temporal ends to the claims of God and the eternal world, under such explicit and positive view. Under any other character, it must stand condemned at once, as being hostile in fact, and not friendly, to religion. Tried by this rule, our common school system, as it now prevails, loses all title to respect. It ignores positive Christianity, and pretends to educate the young without its help; as though it were pos