tained too much of their first odor. "It had been better," says Fuller, "to build new nests for the heavenly dove."

In looking at the comparative results of the ancient and modern systems, we perceive that the fathers made the more. rapid progress, but the work was exceedingly superficial. Ten thousand ignorant Saxons baptized in one day, at the bidding of their king, were a far meaner monument of the power of the truth, than one soul truly enlightened and born. from above. History is full of those hasty conversions, which were not even half conversions. They tell us of old king Radbod, the Frieslander, that he had one foot in the water, when he put the question to Bishop Wulfram, who was about to baptize him,-" Are my royal forefathers in heaven, or in hell?" The bishop replied,- "Doubtless in hell, for they died without the sacrament." The neophyte suddenly drew back his foot, and exclaimed,-" Let me rather be in hell with my kingly ancestors, than go to paradise with a pack of beggars." This hopeful catechumen must have had but a shallow preparation. Nor can we have a much better opinion of the piety of the great Chlovis, who, like Constantine, staked his conversion on a wager of battle. Hearing, in a sermon at church, of the insults heaped upon our Lord in Pilate's hall, his Gallic blood boiled at the recital; and drawing the huge two-handled sword which hung from his shoulder, Chlovis cried out with fierce energy, -"Si ego ibidem, cum Francis meis fuissem, injurias ejus vindicassem!" Another such example we find in Mieczylas I., king of Poland in 964. He became a Christian in order to win the hand of Dombrowka, daughter of the Duke of Bohemia, which country had lately gone over to the faith. He grew to be a zealous proselyte to the peaceful religion of his wife. But the nature of his zeal is too clearly revealed by an edict which he made, that when any portion of the gospel was read in church, the hearers should halfdraw their swords, to attest their eagerness to fight in its defence! Louis, the son of Charlemagne, took a very lively interest in conversion-work; and went so far as to be quite free in his largesse to the initiated, to the no small detriment of their sincerity. Sometimes the candidates (candidati) were so numerous, that it was difficult to supply a sufficient umber of the white dresses then worn in baptism. At one

of these solemnities, some linen of the clergy was cut up, and hastily sewed together; and one of these extemporaneous garments was offered to a Northman chief. The son of Odin, disdainfully frowning, horrified the good priest by saying, "This is the twentieth time that I have come to be washed, and have always heretofore received the best white garments. This vile frock is only fit for a cowherd; and if you cannot furnish a better, I renounce your Christianity."

No doubt, the bulky harvests of those old reapers, for want of threshing and winnowing, included a very large. proportion of chaff. And yet, withal, there was much pure wheat, as we could easily prove by many bright examples, gathered safely into the garner of the Lord.

Those ancient laborers, most of whom have long been forgotten, did a great work. Never was the "plough-share of reform" driven through a harder or thornier field. But those worthies, though they too often only scratched the surface, having put their hand to the plough, looked not back; nor did they rest till they had traced their furrows over that whole continent, and many of the isles of the sea. And who will say, that they were not fit for the kingdom of God, though with the good grain they unwittingly scattered the seeds of many superstitions and errors, which in after times yielded a rank crop of popery? But let it be remembered, that the churches of the glorious Reformation were all of their planting; and the truths that they preached lived in those churches, and at last conquered and thrust out the errors that had been ignorantly disseminated.

If God, by such instruments, was pleased to Christianize a continent, which, with its dependencies, has been ever since the grand seat and source of Christian civilization and religion,-if he did this through instruments, in many respects so poorly fitted for such apostolical work, and so scantily furnished with outward means and appliances,— what may we not hope from the labors of our Protestant missionaries, who are diffusing a heavenly faith, a pure morality, and a Scriptural discipline; expending in the task the vigor of cultivated mind and enlightened ardent piety, aided by the vastly increased facilities of commerce, science, art, invention, and locomotion, all made contributory to

their wishes; who consolidate the power of the word spoken by the word printed, thus preaching to thousands whom they never see, and appealing to "the standing miracle of a Christendom, commensurate and almost synonymous with the civilized world!" Great times are coming. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It will not take another six centuries to complete the evangelizing of such nations as still sit in darkness and the shadow of death. Even now the world is convulsed with the birth-pangs of a new era of regenerated humanity, and a population quickened with the eternal life of "the new man."

ART. III.-NOTES ON NOTE-WRITING.

. NOTE-WRITING has been pushed to great excess; and some who would never have thought of being authors, have set up for critics, and have acquired a spurious fame by hanging their showy vanities on the solid productions of others. The bottom of the page has sometimes been the top of honor. The note-writer has attempted avabαiver xάTw to ascend downwards, while the original author was left natabaívei ava to descend upwards, as the Greek epigram has it. Yet notes are useful, and some works cannot be understood without them. The fault has been, notes have been used on the wrong authors, and applied to the wrong places. Shakspeare, for example, has been "eaten up with commentating zeal," and the plainest passages have been darkened by the most learned explanations. But Spenser (in the popular editions) has been left without these footlights. to his solitary stage. There is a caprice in literature which fashion governs, but wisdom cannot control.

Some enthusiasts have insisted on it, that the Bible should be published and studied without note or comment. Now, to print the naked text of Scripture as the basis of a circulation in which all Christians may join, leaving every one to seek for such critical helps as may suit his own judgment and inclinations, is, doubtless, very well. It serves as a common bond to hold all the church together. It ad

vances a banner, around which all the host of God may rally. But to go beyond this (as some do), and insist that the Bible must always be studied without any help from human comment or illustration, seems a folly and a superstition. We confess, at least, that such a Bible would be a dark book to us. We want all the assistance we can find in penetrating the "deep things" of him whose dwellingplace is darkness, his pavilion round about him, dark waters and thick clouds of the sky. Understand the Bible without notes! The English reader might as well aim to understand it without a translation-for a translation is but an implicit note. The truth is, there are two kinds of notes: the exegetical and the dogmatic. It is the latter only that can impede our independence in examining revealed truth. An exegetical note gives us premises; a dogmatic note alone can seduce us in forming the conclusion, and this not always.

Indeed, a certain kind of notes seem to be necessary in completing the translation; no bald translation can give the whole meaning.

*

The proof may be taken from a modern author. Every pregnant genius writes with a whole circle of allusions, which time diminishes and sometimes destroys. Milton is a popular writer; his field is poetry, which is addressed to the æsthetic part of our nature, and therefore is supposed to be easily understood. Yet he has passages which the finest classical scholar could not understand, though he had rifled. all the treasures with which his memory and library too may be stored. The truth is, that Milton, in his fertility, often transcends the classic ground, and has allusions as wide as the circle of his own reading. How would a reader understand such passages without the auxiliary of a note? Take, for example, the following lines in Lycidas :

*If the reader wishes a verification of this remark, let him look at 2 Samuel, chapter i. verse 18, "teach the children of Judah THE BOW ;" and Job iii. 8, "who are ready to raise up leviathan." What glimpse of meaning can an English reader get from the translation without an explanatory note? In fact, the translation itself is not complete without a note; and I should like to see an edition of the Bible with notes, not dogmatical, but only designed to complete the translation. All denominations might agree in receiving it.

66

"Ay, me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide,
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth."

We question whether even Bishop Newton understood this passage. He certainly has not explained it. "The monstrous world," "moist vows," "the fable of Bellerus," "the great vision," "the guarded mount," "Namancos," and Bayona"-riddles all to the common reader. All these allusions are beautifully explained in the notes to Todd's edition of Milton, vol. v., pages 45-56. The critic here reveals the beauties of the bard, simply by helping us to understand him.

The 411th line of the fourth book of Paradise Lost might demand a note from one wishing to write it. It reads thus::

"Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thyself than all," &c.

Neither Dr. Bentley nor Bishop Newton seems to have understood it. Dr. Bentley asks-"How can a part be sole? Sole part is a contradiction;" and he proceeds to read "best part;" and Bishop Newton alters the punctua'tion, and would have it thus :

"Sole partner and sole part; of all these joys,
Dearer thyself than all."

That is, among all these joys, thou thyself art the dearest. But we suspect the old punctuation is correct. Sole part is not a contradiction, or if it is, it is one of those poetic contradictions which are only adequate forms of comprehensive truth. Sole part means, "Thou impartest something of joy to every other object; though a part of my blessings, thou deed minglest with the whole, and therefore thou art the