what positions have been maintained; what victories will not need to be gained over again. If in this survey of the protracted conflict, the ground is seen to be constantly narrowing, the points of attack and defence gradually becoming fewer and fewer; if amidst all the skilful shifting of scenes and changes of attitude, the enemy is evidently urged to the extremity of risking every thing in one decisive battle, against fearful odds, and without retreat-we have room for something more than conjecture as to the result.

Let the history of Christianity speak for itself on this subject, and her friends may lift up their heads. In what great controversy has she not signally triumphed? The writer of the Acts has briefly narrated her first successes. The crucifixion itself, which the enemies of the Saviour regarded as the annihilation of the sect, was in fact the corner stone of the Christian edifice. After the ascension, the Jewish sanhedrim, failing to intimidate the apostles by threats, are about to proceed to violence; when the people, who had stood silent or exulted, at the crucifixion, now interpose; and the persecutors are checked. But miracle was multiplied upon miracle; all Jerusalem were bringing their sick and possessed of the devil to be healed by the wonder-working preachers of the new religion. The rulers were filled with indignation; imprisoned the apostles; assembled the whole senate; worked themselves up to a defiance of the popular voice; sent for the helpless victims of their revenge; and lo, it was announced, "The men, whom ye put in prison, are standing in the temple, and teaching the people." The exasperated senate ordered them to be again seized, and brought into their presence, resolved, no doubt, to put them to instant death. "Then stood there one up in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation of all the people ;" and again they were defeated. Thus ended the first attack upon the apostles.

The persecution which arose about Stephen, was suffered to proceed so far as to effect the divine purpose in scattering the disciples abroad, and was then terminated, by the remarkable conversion of the leading man in it, the determined. and indefatigable Saul of Tarsus. Soon, however, the consternation, produced by this event, wore off from the public mind; and Herod the king, "to please the Jews," for the first time, enlisted the civil authority in the cause of the persecutors. He killed James, and imprisoned Peter. The

day was fixed for the public execution of the latter. But on the very night before he was to "be brought forth to the people," "the Lord sent his angel, and delivered the apostle from the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews." The crafty monarch, to conceal the cause of his defeat, put the keepers of the prison to death. While thus preserving his credit, and filling his ears with the idolatrous adulation of the multitude, "the angel of the Lord smote him upon his throne, and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. But the word of God," adds the sacred historian, with just exultation, "grew and was multiplied."

The next great contest of the gospel was with the philosophy and civil power of the Roman empire. The struggle was a long one-" multa prælia, et aliquando non incruenta." The disparity of the parties was all but infinite—a stripling with a sling and a stone, going out to meet the Philistine of Gath; the untitled and undisciplined followers of "the crucified malefactor," arrayed against the acuteness and wit of Greece, the throne and armies of the empress of the world. It was a conflict of thrilling interest; and the issue long in suspense. But philosophy at length came, and humbled herself before the cross of Jesus; and the majesty of Rome knelt down at his feet.

Then came, in the lapse of ages, a yet severer trial to the church. She had conquered Judaism and Paganism. It was now to be decided, whether she could control herself. And, certainly, if there is a passage of utter darkness in her history, it is that which ensued upon her brilliant triumph over the reasonings and the power of the pagan world. But here, also, she was victorious. Internal disorder could no more prove fatal, than external violence. The Reformation was her own work; and is a glorious proof, that when she sleepeth, she is not dead.

Out of the Reformation itself, in some degree, grew a new and appalling form of opposition-the modern Infidel philosophy. The exposure of real and enormous wickedness, under the cloak of religion, was eagerly made the occasion of assailing all pretensions to religion as hypocritical. The abuses of it, became an imposing argument against its truth. Men of the greatest ability in Europe conspired to extirpate it. Its friends were shocked and dismayed, not only at the talent and eloquence employed against them, but still more at the apparent success and rude triumph of their foes.

Europe was deluged with skeptical opinions. Inquiry began to be made into the grounds of our faith in revelation, and the result was the entire discomfiture of infidelity. It may be safely said, that the masterly treatises upon the Evidences of Christianity, to which this great controversy gave rise, have placed those evidences upon a solid basis. Infidelity was fairly driven from the field; and no man of character, enough to merit reply, now appears to maintain the argument in her favor.

The present attitude of the world in relation to this subject, is singular, and singularly trying to the faith of reflecting Christians. While the argument for revelation is so clear as to admit of no reply, (for we cannot dignify a splenetic newspaper effusion, or dirty pamphlet, with this name,) there is, at the same time, a strange insensibility to its force. Men look upon the case as fairly made out; but with idle wonder only, or a secret misgiving that all may not be right. That a "notable miracle hath been wrought," they "cannot deny," and yet feel not the slightest emotion. If the writer of this article is not greatly deceived, this is precisely the condition of many of the thinking men of our own country and of other countries. In this state of things, although the history of the church forbids despair, regard for the cause of human happiness calls upon us to ask anxiously after a remedy. And it may not be presumptuous in the writer to suggest, that as the gospel is in its very nature a RELIEF system, a BALM, the great point to be aimed at is not so much conviction of its truth, as consciousness of its necessity. The character of our times is calling for no shallow declamations; no fine sentiments; no pretty sentences-but, for what the divines of the seventeenth century have given us examples, a thorough disclosure of the inner man. We need to be made to feel, not only that religion is a good thing, and a duty; but that it is a necessary good-that without it we cannot die, because, without it, we cannot LIVE.

ARTICLE VI.

MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF BYRON.

Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of his Life. By Thomas Moore. In two volumes. New York: J. & J. Harper.

ON a first perusal of the Life of Byron, we are struck with surprise, that a character like his should have excited so deep an interest in ourselves and others. It is one utterly destitute of moral principle, and yet we are most deeply interested in all its developments and undertakings. We gaze on it somewhat as men, from a distance, gaze upon what is dangerous. There is an emotion of sublimity produced, which though mingled with pain, still gives us pleasure. And the philosophy of the feeling seems to be this :-We discover in the character we contemplate, some fine traits of social affection, and some bursts of imagination, and some noble instances of generosity, which cast a halo around its darkness, and-to change the figure-like the ivy around ruins, would be less striking, if they did not encircle decay.

Such characters are not uncommon, though they are often found on a much smaller scale. What is more, they are as dangerous as they are common; and it is because we would guard against their influence, that we have recorded their danger here. "Such is human nature"-was the language of Mr. Webster, in his speech during the trial of Knapp, for murder" that some persons lose their abhorrence of crime, in their admiration of its magnificent exhibitions. Ordinary vice is reprobated by them; but extraordinary guilt, exquisite wickedness, the high flights and poetry of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead them to forget the depths of the guilt, in admiration of the excellence of the performance, or the unequalled atrocity of the purpose. There are those in our day, who have made great use of this infirmity of our nature; and by means of it done infinite injury to the cause of good morals. They have affected not only the taste, but I fear also the principles, of the young, the heed

less, and the imaginative, by the exhibition of interesting and beautiful monsters. They render depravity attractive, sometimes by the polish of its manners, and sometimes by its very extravagance; and study to show off crime, under all the advantages of cleverness and dexterity." As the first moral reflection, then, upon Mr. Moore's life of lord Byrona reflection which arises also from the contemplation of the insinuating biographer himself-we would say, let us take care of the false splendor, which a bad man, who knows human nature, is able often to throw around him by the manifestation of some noble traits of natural feeling, or the brilliant coruscations of a splendid genius. To use one of Mr. Moore's best figures, such characters are

"Like dead-sea fruits, which tempt the eye,—
But turn to poison, on the lips."

There is another reflection strongly suggested by this biography, and in making it, we shall exhibit to our readers. some illustrations from the work itself:-It is the influence of a vicious life upon the faculty of memory. We have often wondered at the tendency of a certain class of sentimental writers, with whom we are somewhat acquainted, and for whose moral characters we cannot, even in the judgment of charity, have any respect, to be continually dwelling with a kind of morbid tenacity upon scenes which have passed, although the recurrence seems, at the same time, to cost them much pain. It would seem, on reading many of their effusions, that they could find no resting-place for the sole of their foot, except somewhere amid the by-gone scenes of childhood, by the side of their mother's knee, or amid the ruins of scenes of pleasure and comparative innocence now gone forever. In the course of quotations from lord Byron's writings, in the two volumes before us, we have been peculiarly struck with this tendency. In almost every poetic quotation made by Mr. Moore, we find the troubled soul of the noble poet flying back to such past and happy scenes, as the dove, driven back by the waters, sought a shelter and retreat in the ark. We give some specimens. They are interesting on account of the poetry which they contain, as well as because they are illustrations of our remark.