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properly decide upon his own fate.- "I have sinned and perverted that which was right.-Let me hide myself in the darkness of the grave! No; for God's ministers, and all beings— good and evil, shall demand me at the hands of death, and forbid I should be forgotten. The dust may not screen me—the clods may not cover me.-Corruption may not say I am lost and gone. The highest tribunal is waiting my appearance; and unless I am made there to stand, the honor of all government is blasted-the perfections of God impugned.—True, I am insignificant; but yet am party in a cause in which the wisdom, and purity, and power of the eternal God are in question."

THE BIBLE.-MISS JEWSBURY.

If it is the wonder of heaven to be independent of that book, it is the glory of earth to possess it. If the " spirits of the just made perfect," are admitted to behold the face of God, we, through the medium of the scriptures, may even here understand somewhat of his character: if they are received into his glory, we may be led by his counsel.

But who, alas! beholding the gross neglect or wandering attention the scriptures generally receive, would imagine that the possession of them was any privilege? that they contained the revelation of "the mystery hid from ages and generations," and still withheld from many nations and people; that they, and they only, made known to us "the way of peace!" And yet as far as our species is concerned, we may say, one sun! one bible! Shut that awfully-glorious book-blot from the human memory all we have learnt from its pages, and it is as though you quenched the day-spring!-the whole world lieth in darkness! To guilty, miserable man, there remains no God!

-no heaven!—no guide in life!-no support in affliction!—no victory over death! the grave becomes a fathomless abyss, and eternity spreads round him like the ocean, dark, illimitable, fearful! Open the bible again,-the sun is restored, and with it, life, glory, gladness, and strength! If all the minds now on earth could be concentrated into one, and that one applied the whole of its stupendous energies to the study of this single book, it would never apprehend its doctrines in all their divine purity; its promises in their overpowering fullness; its precepts in their searching extent ;-even that glorious mind, sufficient to exhaust the universe, would only discover that the scriptures were inexhaustible.

185

HISTORICAL WRITING.

CHARACTER OF PAUL.-MILNER.

Paul! Has such a man ever existed among all those who have inherited the corrupted nature of Adam? He had evidently a soul of a large and capacious kind, possessed of those seemingly contradictory excellencies which, wherever they appear in combination, fail not to form an extraordinary character. But not only his talents were great and varioushis learning also was profound and extensive; and many persons with far inferior abilities and attainments, have effected national revolutions, or otherwise distinguished themselves in the history of mankind. His consummate fortitude was tempered with the rarest gentleness, and the most active charity. His very copious and vivid imagination was chastised by the most accurate judgment, and was connected with the closest argumentative powers. Divine grace alone could effect so wonderful a combination; insomuch, that for the space of near thirty years after his conversion, this man, whose natural haughtiness and fiery temper had hurried him into a very sanguinary course of persecution, lived the friend of mankind; returned good for evil continually; was a model of patience and benevolence, and steadily attentive only to heavenly things, while yet he had a taste, a spirit, and a genius, which might have shone among the greatest statesmen and men of letters that ever lived.

We have then in these two men, a strong specimen of what grace can do, and we may fairly challenge all the infidels in the world, to produce any thing like them in the whole list of their heroes. Yet amidst the constant display of every godly and social virtue, we learn from Paul's own account, that he ever felt himself "carnal, sold under sin," and that sin dwelt in him continually. From his writings we learn, what the depth of human wickedness is: and none of the apostles seem to have understood so much as he did, the riches of divine grace, and the peculiar glory of the christian religion. The doctrines of election, justification, regeneration, adoption; of the priesthood and offices of Christ, and of the internal work of

the Holy Ghost, as well as the most perfect morality founded on christian principle, are to be found in his writings; and what Quintilian said of Cicero, may be justly applied to the apostle of the Gentiles: "Ille se profecisse sciat, cui Paulus valde placebit."

RIENZI.-GIBBON.

In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by mechanics and Jews, the marriage of an innkeeper and a washerwoman produced the future deliverer of Rome. From such parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini could inherit neither dignity nor fortune; and the gift of a liberal education, which they painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory and untimely end. The study of history and eloquence, the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Cæsar, and Valerius Maximus, elevated above his equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian he perused with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity; loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar language; and was often provoked to exclaim, "Where are now these Romans? their virtue, their justice, their power? why was I not born in those happy times?" When the republic addressed to the throne of Avignon an embassy of the three orders, the spirit and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place among the thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor of haranguing pope Clement the Sixth, and the satisfaction of conversing with Petrarch, a congenial mind: but his aspiring hopes were chilled by disgrace and poverty; and the patriot was reduced to a single garment, and the charity of the hospital. From this misery he was relieved by the sense of merit or the smile of favor; and the employment of apostolic notary afforded him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a more honorable and extensive connexion, and the right of contrasting, both in words and actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. The eloquence of Rienzi was prompt and persuasive: the multitude is always prone to envy and censure: he was stimulated by the loss of a brother, and the impunity of the assassins; nor was it possible to excuse or exaggerate the public calamities. The blessings of peace and justice, for which civil society has been instituted, were banished from Rome: the jealous citizens,

who might have endured every personal or pecuniary injury, vere most deeply wounded in the dishonor of their wives and aughters: they were equally oppressed by the arrogance of he nobles, and the corruption of the magistrates; and the abuse of arms or of laws was the only circumstance that disinguished the lions from the dogs and serpents of the capitol. These allegorical emblems were variously repeated in the pictures which Rienzi exhibited in the streets and churches; and while the spectators gazed with curious wonder, the bold and ready orator unfolded the meaning, applied the satire, inflamed their passions, and announced a distant hope of comfort and deliverance. The privileges of Rome, her eternal sovereignty over her princes and provinces, was the theme of his public and private discourse; and a monument of servitude became in his hands a title and incentive of liberty. The decree of the senate, which granted the most ample prerogatives to the emperor Vespasian, had been inscribed on a copperplate, still extant in the choir of the church of St. John Lateran. A numerous assembly of nobles and plebeians was invited to this political lecture, and a convenient theater was erected for their reception. The notary appeared in a magnificent and mysterious habit, explained the inscription by a version and commentary, and descanted with eloquence and zeal on the ancient glories of the senate and people, from whom all legal authority was derived. The supine ignorance of the nobles was incapable of discerning the serious tendency of such representations : they might sometimes chastise with words and blows the plebeian reformer; but he was often suffered in the Colonna palace to amuse the company with his threats and predictions; and the modern Brutus was concealed under the mask of folly and the character of a buffoon. While they indulged their contempt, the restoration of the good estate, his favorite expression, was entertained among the people as a desirable, a possible, and at length as an approaching event; and while all had the disposition to applaud, some had the courage to assist their promised deliverer.

A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the churchdoor of St. George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a nocturnal assembly of a hundred citizens on mount Aventine, the first step to their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid, he represented to the conspirators the importance and facility of their enterprise; that the nobles, without union or resources, were strong only in the fear of their imaginary strength;

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that all power, as well as right, was in the hands of the people; that the revenues of the apostolical chamber might relieve the public distress; and that the pope himself would approve their victory over the common enemies of government and freedom. After securing a faithful band to protect his first declaration, he proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the evening of the following day all persons should assemble without arms, before the church of St. Angelo, to provide for the re-establishment of the good estate. The whole night was employed in the celebration of thirty masses of the Holy Ghost; and in the morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, but in complete armor, issued from the church, encompassed by the hundred conspiraThe pope's vicar, the simple bishop of Orvieto, who had been persuaded to sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched on his right hand; and three great standards were borne aloft as the emblems of their design. In the first, the banner of liberty, Rome was seated on two lions, with a palm in one hand, and a globe in the other: St. Paul, with a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner of justice; and in the third, St. Peter held the keys of concord and peace. Rienzi was encouraged by the presence and applause of an innumerable crowd, who understood little, and hoped much; and the procession slowly rolled forwards from the castle of St. Angelo to the capitol. His triumph was disturbed by some secret emotions which he labored to suppress: he ascended without opposition, and with seeming confidence, the citadel of the republic, harangued the people from the balcony, and received the most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws. The nobles, as if destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent consternation this strange revolution; and the moment had been prudently chosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was absent from the city. On the first rumor, he returned to his palace, affected to despise this plebeian tumult, and declared to the messengers of Rienzi, that at his leisure he would cast the madman from the windows of the capitol. The great bell instantly rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, so urgent was the danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the suburb of St. Laurence: from thence, after a moment's refreshment, he continued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his castle of Palestrina; lamenting his own imprudence, which had not trampled the spark of this mighty conflagration. A general and peremptory order was issued

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