binding men to their tenets then, as it binds christians now to the religion which Revelation has substantiated. Priests snatched the speculations from poets: for there is always much of religion in poetry: and the shrine of philosophy was transferred from the summit of Parnassus to the grottos of Delphi. Philosophy then ruled the world, and nations trembled before the obscure oracles of Apollo, as did Israel before the smoking Sinai. Tinged as it is with the conceptions of poets, and shrouded in the obscurity of superstitious mystery, it is no wonder that when philosophy became a profession, each mind found theories for itself, adapted to its own tastes, modified by its own character: that they differed even, from Pantheism to Atheism, from a laughing Democritus, to the tearful Heraclitus. And far from truth as they all may be in their theories, it will certainly be admitted that there is, in many of them, much excellent morality, and much pure enjoyment. Strange as it may sound, yet it seems true that of them all there is none, which in its ideas of conduct, and its immediate influence, approximates more closely to the tastes of the present day than the Epicurean school. Though abuse of its doctrines has seemed to render just, the calumny which oppresses it, it still bears a vein of richest ore, which needs but the cleansing power of Christian discrimination and the stamp of modern society to make it current coin. The physical doctrines of Epicurus are no less ridiculous than false. It seems impossible to conceive a more strange admixture on the one hand, of truths which modern science has scarcely yet verified, and on the other, of absurdities which a savage never believed. Denying both an overruling Providence and an irregular chance, he not even embraced the doctrine of blind fatality; but referred everything to a necessity dependent upon material laws. He believed that this necessity acted in the formation as well as government of matter: and by it accounted for all the various forms in which nature is developed. That indestructible atoms by the power of gravitation formed the earth, the sky, the stars, and the vegetables and animals-that these grew first by accident and afterwards by habit-that the eye was not made to see, nor the ear to hear, but that the seeing and the hearing were qualities accidentally discovered that the mind and the soul were formed by atoms of matter, and were so governed-in short that there was no design in creation, was this strange theory, unworthy of philosophy. A theory at which the Christian and the Poet, who sees a God of love and wisdom in everything, shudders as at blasphemy. And yet even here we may find traces of truths which honor their discoverer. If he ignored a

Creator and a Governor, God, he believed that all things were governed by laws as regular and immutable as the Christian's creed. And in this, after all, he differs but slightly from us. We too believe all things are governed by laws immutable, but we see in all only an illustration of the principle that "Order is Heaven's first law." He looked upon order as the Heaven of power itself. We "look through nature, up to nature's God." He looked to nature as the primeval author. We see through the wondrous system of material things as we look through the firmament above us; only a connecting medium between Heaven and Earth. He looked at it all, as he looked at the sky, as enclosing this vast arena of Heaven and Earth commingled.. We see in man the noblest work of God. He saw in man the God of earth. We recognize the human heart as a broken harp string from the hand of God; to be here attuned by grateful love, for an angel's harp in Heaven. He thought it an angelic harp, fit for heavenly melody. When separated from his absurd theories of the origin of matter, his ideas of the laws which govern it were singularly correct. They imply no fundamental error, but are simply too limited-displaying what to us seems a surprising lack of research. And yet it can scarcely be wondered at, that a heathen should refuse to believe that of which only Christian faith can convince the mind enlightened by Revelation from God.

From the midst of this chaos of absurdities, there arose an idea of exquisite beauty—the Epicurean doctrine of the Gods. While they denied their office as Creators and Governors of the universe, they yet believed them as do we, to be eternal, infinitely good and supremely happy. Pure and holy beyond the conception of man, they deemed them, for this reason alone, deserving of his unbounded love. We can scarcely conceive an idea more worthy of an angel; nor one which were it practicable, would bring men nearer God. That men should love virtue for its own inherent purity and sweetness-should love the Gods for their wondrous excellence. Having no blessings to crave, no punishments to fear, having no selfish motives to induce praise or prayer, but loving them solely because they are so good.

We read how poets have cherished an ideal beauty till their death, and lavished upon it the love which human nature never could command. And Shelley has imagined for us his Alastor wanderings the wide world over, for the impersonation of loveliness and goodness. But surely it is an idea which lives but in the poet's brain. And happy must be the man who can believe it real. Worthy of enduring gratitude is the

philosophy which could implant in human hearts a love like this, free from every influence of selfish gratitude or fear. For if it be true, that

"He's not a pious man whom fear constrains
To acts of piety,"

it seems almost as true that piety, because of gratitude for favors received or hoped for, partakes of the selfish, the mercenary spirit which has a taint of earth.

The moral philosophy of Epicurus has met the severest censure, as well as the highest applause. He believed that pleasure was the whole of virtue, pain the whole of vice. Yet that pleasure was not always to be accepted because greater pain might follow-nor pain always avoided, but it should prevent the enjoyment of a greater pleasure. Thus he made prudence the guide of enjoyment. And prudence, exercised in the choice of pleasure and pain, of good and evil, is only virtue or vice. It is but prudence that the Christian uses, when he prefers eternal happiness to worldly pleasure; and if it be said that he is influenced by his graetful love to God, it certainly is true that his love is not so free from selfishness as that which the Epicurean strove to exercise.

The Epicurean's prudence supplied the place of the Christian's conscience. The vice prevented by the one for virtue's sake, was prohibited by the other for the shame and sorrow which might follow it. The analogy

:

is still closer. The Epicurean believed that happiness was the end to strive for that virtue was the means by which to attain it. The Christian believes that virtue is the end, while happiness will follow as a sure reward. In result they are the same-the attainment of happiness by the means of virtue. It was the misfortune of the Epicurean philosophy, that this leading principle was so stated as to admit of false constructions. For it were an easy matter to forget the virtue if the happiness were attained. And prudence was not always an unerring judge between lasting pleasure and momentary enjoyment. Not only was this a great misfortune, but it was a great fault. It gave men no high ideal to look to, no ennobling object for which to strive. Honor, generosity, selfsacrificing patriotism had no share in the motives of such a philosophy. All things were weighed by the calculating policy of a cautious speculator. The gladdening was seized with the avidity of a heartless pleasureseeker. Yet the influence of this philosophy was far from being wholly evil. A man who has ever stood in the conflict of opinion when passion runs riot over judgment, and reason is forgotten, can easily understand

how an independent mind should seek in a medium course, relief from the disgust attendant equally upon both extremes. Such was the situation of Epicurus. And if he imbibed the faults both of Zeno and Aristippus, he united also many of their excellences. He changed the path of virtue from a rocky steep to a delightful garden; and a garden, which abounding in the beauty and music which made Eden the abode of happiness, yet was free from the sensual gratifications which corrupt good taste, as they destroy good morals. He represented virtue herself, as she appeared to Hercules, a figure indeed of grace and beauty and loveliness: but draped with the pure white robe which modesty of look and sobriety of demeanor alone could render appropriate. Like this same virtue, in promising to her votaries a better happiness, he did not at all disparage the untroubled enjoyment of meat and drink; the sweet tranquility of peaceful rest. And not the least prominent, as not the least beneficial of all, was the cordial love which characterized his disciples: friendship so great as reigns now but in private circles. Their intimacy was too close, their friendship too sincere to need the bond of distrustful oaths or require the tribute of formal thanks, when mutual kindnesses came thick as blessings from the Gods. It was their doctrine to cultivate manners as well as morals, to make gentlemen as well as citizens; to endow all their members with lively, cheerful dispositions, with urbane and captivating address; to cultivate politeness in its truest sense of "kindness, kindly expressed." Book-worms he did not encourage, declaring nothing was worthy of study that did not conduce to the happiness of life: thus making not ambition, but the love of learning, the sole incentive to study. And last of all was the crowning principle of unselfish love to God for his excellence. It was these doctrines which influenced the Epicurean for good. And how could men believe them to be gross, sensual, detestable. True, vice pays homage to virtue; but never was there a taste depraved by vulgar appetites, that free from selfishness, could love with religious fervor, a virtue like the fabled goodness of the Gods. And if men do become like the objects of their adoration, such devotion to such goodness could not but have been virtuous and good.

The influence of this philosophy upon its advocates was good. It was what the hearth-stone is to-day to the man of labor; wooing him to a tranquil enjoyment of his own tastes and his own opinions; the place where men acquired what we now need so much; that equability of temperament which makes one capable of real enjoyment. It was where

the heart was educated. And true it is-far more true, than this ambitious age admits, that:

"The heart may give most useful lessons to the head."

The life of an Epicurean was what we conceive to be the life of a poet; all within. A man who with the imagination of a Shelley, the passion of a Byron, and yet the common-sense of a Shakspeare, sees beauty and love and joy in everything. And yet who, never having learned a Christian's faith, thinks of it all as poetry. Who can love a

God, and even love all nature more, because he deems that

"Beauty was lent to nature, as the type
Of Heaven's unspeakable and holy joy;"

and yet shrinks from religion because he cannot bring so pure a thing in contact with the cold, base world. The Epicurean philosophy developed such sensitiveness of mind, such purity of taste. Wicked it may be; wrong it surely is. But who would not rather be the gentle novice of the convent, erring on the side of nature's loveliness, than the heartless matron who looks on all love, all joy, all music, as sin.

The Epicurean system of philosophy was eminently a system of moral beauty If it lacked the sublimity of character, which made the French philosopher almost wish Christianity were changed for Stoicism, it lacks too the sternness which made of man that doubtful thing, between a hero and a brute; it lacked the unfeeling harshness for which angelic harps never tuned. Tom Moore, in his Epicurean, beautifully displays the virtues of this system. He represents it as it is, almost a stepping-stone to Christianity. As the chief of the Epicurean sect wandered in his prosecution of such pleasure, through Egyptian Edens, his refinement of taste, his purity of heart increased from step to step, till in his life "pure love took the place of religon." And when at length, his fickle temperament found in the maid Alethe, the type of Christian innocence, it was but one step for the mind thus prepared to rise to Christianity. Divest Epicureanism of its physical errors, free it from all gross associations of the name, and it seems in that benighted age like the smile of a weak but lovely unbeliever, far preferable to the wanton laugh of the debauchee, or the haughty pride of a stoical Pharisee, and second but to the radiant gentleness which only Christianity can bestow. It seems as it was, the vain aspiring of an earnest but unenlightened heart, feeling that there is a purer, holier pleasure than mere experience, and yearning for a happiness which only Christians know, only angels feel.