has no life in him. And if this can be done only by actual receiving of the Sacrament, to what frightful conclusions we are driven. Of the one hundred and fifty thousand millions of human beings that have come into existence on the earth and passed away, the great majority have failed, through no fault of theirs, to find a share in the benefits procured for the whole race by the death and sacrifice of our Saviour Christ. And of the one thousand millions now alive on the earth, more than six hundred millions must likewise fail.

This is the inevitable consequence of asserting the reception of the Eucharist to be the only means of eating the Body and drinking the Blood of the Son of Man. There is no possible way of avoiding it except by denying that the eating and drinking of Christ's Body and Blood is of universal necessity to salvation. But this is directly contradicted by our Lord's express declaration. And how repugnant to all ideas of a just and good God to suppose Him making anything an absolute necessity for all men to do in order to salvation and eternal life, and yet not making it possible for all men to do it.

Therefore since he has undeniably made the eating of the Flesh and the drinking of the Blood of the Son of man a necessity for all men, we conclude that he has made it possible for all. We conclude then that there must be some other way for men's souls to be made partakers of Christ's Body and Blood, besides that of actually receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

And so we doubt not that the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, and the death of the Son of Man, as of a lamb slain from the foundation of the world, have in some mysterious way procured for humanity the impartation of the grace of the Holy Spirit, whose working in the heart of humanity has made it possible for men in every age of the world to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man, and so really to participate in the effect and benefit of a sacrifice dimly, or, it may be, not at all revealed to their knowledge and apprehension. Those on whom the light of the Gospel shines, and for whom the Sacrament of the Holy Supper is provided in the Church by Divine appointment, are admitted to a state of higher privilege (as we naturally count privilege) than the rest of mankind—and with a corresponding responsibility. Why this

difference in point of privilege exists, we cannot tell. We have to refer it to God's will and to presume a wisdom and goodness which we cannot explain. This much we may be sure of that the rest of mankind will not be made to suffer any spiritual eternal loss or detriment on account of their lack of any privilege which is enjoyed by men in Christian lands. On the contrary, by so much as our estimation of the necessity and benefits of the Christian Sacraments is exalted, by so much are we admonished to remember our Lord's words: "Many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven; but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness."

C. S. HENRY.

THE SATIRES OF PERSIUS.

AULI PERSII FLACCI SATIRARUM LIBER, cum ejus Vita, vetere Scholiaste, et Isaaci Casauboni notis; una cum ejusdem Persiana Horatii Imitatione. LUGD. BAT.: 1695.

THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL AND PERSIUS, with English Notes, partly compiled and partly original. By Charles William Stocker, D.D. LONDON: 1839.

JUVENALIS ET PERSII SATIRE, with a Commentary by the Rev. A. J. Macleane, M.A. LONDON: 1867.

THE SATIRES OF A. PERSIUS FLACCUS, with a Translation and Commentary by John Conington, M.A. OXFORD: 1872.

Every scholar feels it a duty to read and study the Satires of Horace and of Juvenal. The few fragments which have come down to us from their great predecessor, Lucretius, are so brief and so disconnected that we are forced to rest satisfied with a slight knowledge of him. But why is it that Persius is so little read, although we have, as we suppose, nearly all of Satire that he ever wrote? He has been a popular author, and is still admired by those who study his works. His popularity began at once, and it was by no means limited to his own age. Early Christian writers studied his Satires; he is quoted familiarly by Lactantius and Augustine; and we are told that there is scarce one of his moral reflections or maxims of truth which does not reappear in the let ters and commentaries of Jerome.' Bishop Burnet ventured to say of his second satire, that it might "well pass for one of the

'Prof. Ramsay in Class. Dict.

best lectures in Divinity." He is frequently quoted by writers of the middle age; and a few of his verses are among the Latin quotations which we most frequently meet.' It is matter of wonder that he is not oftener quoted, and that more persons cannot understand and appreciate allusions to his poems.

For Persius stands in a peculiarly interesting position, and represents a class of men whose habits and opinions we are glad to learn and read. He is the student-philosopher of the days of Nero. If Juvenal was the preacher who could stand on his pulpit, surveying the crowd of rascals and of wretches who filled both high and low places at Rome, and with his scathing voice could denounce the sin of which he was an unwilling witness, Persius was the young thinker, trained to love the ways of divine philosophy, gazing out into the world long enough to confirm the ideas which his books had given him of human nature, and so saddened with the faults of judgment and of life on which he had looked, that he turned back to his books as the only teachers of true wisdom. He never knew of all the sin which Juvenal saw; he never felt the cruelty of Rome's tyrants as it was exercised by Nero in the later years of his reign, and afterward by Domitian; but he had learned what he thought to be the true path of life,choosing the narrow way which the right branch of the Samian letter" pointed out; and he saw that men about him either did not know of that way or did not choose it, and so ran into errors of judgment, into false ideas of the gods,' into idleness and shiftlessness," into lack of self-knowledge, into false ideas of liberty,' and into stingy avarice. And though, as we are told, he had not a ready pen, he felt it his duty to protest against the errors which were gaining ground about him, to show where was the right course of life and what was its only noble end, and to do something for the reformation of the times. And what if he has written rather in the atmosphere of the study than in that of the world? Would

3

6

1 For instance, iii. 35, ii. 83; i. 112.

"The Y or Y, by which Pythagoras illustrated the two paths which open before men; iii. 56; compare v. 34,

you expect a boy not yet eight and twenty years old,' to know all depths of wickedness and to find out a way for exposing them all to contempt and disgrace? Would you expect a studiously disposed youth with a library of about seven hundred volumes at his hand,' to get all his ideas of men and things from his own observation? Would you expect one who had studied Chrysippus and had been taught by Cornutus, to be altogether original in his methods? Or would you ask of this earnest youth that he should write in a style altogether free from mannerisms and from inflated and mixed tropes ? Rather would you not be surprised to see him showing, not only a wide and careful study of literature, but also a profound insight into human nature and a knowledge of the ways of the world, and to find him an earnest teacher of morals as well as a satirist gifted with a keen sense of the ridiculous? Yet such a man was Persius. His style seems difficult to one who opens at his first page; and we are told that its harshness and obscurity, while it has deterred many from reading his works, has added to the carefulness and the number of the annotations which have been made on the text, and to the admiration which those have felt who have been able to grasp and appreciate his meaning. But begin with the third satire and the fifth; having read these with the aid of a good commentator, you will be willing to undertake some hard work in order to read the first and the others; but then will not find the work hard. There are some strange you words; it is often very difficult to tell who the interlocutors are or with what purpose they are introduced; and false figures of rhetoric may at times offend the taste; but to have overcome such obstacles only adds to the pleasure which can be gained from the study. And it is evident, besides, that Persius could write in a perfectly pure and unaffected style; as where, in words of which Virgil or Horace need not be ashamed, he tells Cornutus of the depth and reality of his love, and asks his old teacher to recall the gracious

'Persius was born at Volaterrae in Etruria, Dec. 4, A.D. 34, and died at his estate, eight miles from Rome on the Appian Way, Nov. 24, A.D. 62.

"He left so many as a legacy to Cornutus.

"For a curious example see v. 115.