to release Callistus also. Victor, however, was much grieved at what had taken place, but, being a kindly man, held his peace. But to avoid reproach, (for the misdeeds of Callistus were of recent date,) he sent him to live in Antium, making him a monthly allowance for his support."

We have given a meagre account, indeed, of this book, but quite enough, we think, to justify our assertion, in the beginning of this article, that it is an invaluable discovery. And it is gratifying to know that its value remains unaffected by the proof that Origen was not its author.

ART. IX.-DEATH OF PRESIDENT OLIN.

"OUR graveyards," says Sir Thomas Browne," are the dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an insolent champion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory in Adam." The triumph of that dismal victory is heightened when a leader, a guide, or a hero falls. And such was STEPHEN OLIN. Had we no trust in Him who shall finally conquer even the "last enemy," this late victory of the grave would chill our hopes and hearts forever. And even with all the light which the word of God affords, and with all the strength which faith imparts, we can still only say, It is the Lord: his will be done.

It is fitting that this journal should contain some memorial, some tribute of grateful love, for one who was its ablest contributor. Not that he needs, or would wish, any words of praise that we or other men could utter: few men were more careless of praise than he. His life was a simple, earnest striving for moral purity, something far nobler than the highest aims of mere human ambition. It could almost be said of him,-so free was his beautiful soul from all merely earthly aspirations,-as a wise man said of himself—that he "cared not for monument, history, or epitaph, not so much as that the bare memory of his name should be found anywhere, but in the universal register of God.”

Stephen Olin was born in Vermont, on the 2d of March, 1797. His academical education was completed in the college at Middlebury, in his native state, where he graduated with the highest honours of his class. In a genial notice in a daily journal," we see it stated that at the close of the Commencement at which he graduated, it was remarked by one of the professors, that "Mr. Olin was the ripest scholar who had ever come before him to be examined for his degree." Soon afterwards, to benefit his failing health, be removed to South Carolina, and was elected Principal of Tabernacle Academy, Abbeville District. Here he was converted to God, and, very shortly after, he began to preach the gospel. In 1824, he was admitted on trial in the South Carolina Conference, and stationed in Charleston, S. C. His labours

The New-York Commercial Advertiser.

were excessive, and his health soon gave way, compelling him to locate. In 1827, he was married to Miss Bostwick, of Milledgeville, Ga. In 1830, he was chosen Professor of English Literature in the University of Georgia, but did not hold the office long. In 1832 he was called to a professorship in Franklin College, Ga., and in 1833, to the Presidency of Randolph Macon College, Va.; but in 1837 he found it necessary to free himself from all professional responsibilities, and seek health in foreign travel. He spent several years in Europe and the East, and has given the results of his observations in the latter region in the two excellent volumes of "Travels in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land." In 1842 he was elected President of the Wesleyan University, and continued to fill that office to the time of his death. In 1843 he was married to Miss Julia Lynch, daughter of the Hon. Judge Lynch, of NewYork. During the latter years of his life, his health was always feeble; and when, in the summer of the present year, he was attacked with a prevailing and acute disease, his shattered organization soon sank under it. On the 16th of August he died.

Dr. Olin was a man of remarkable organization. His physical and mental proportions were alike gigantic. His intellect was of that imperial rank to which but few of the sons of men can lay claim. At once acute, penetrating, and profound, it lacked none of the elements of true mental greatness. We have known many men far superior to him in acquired learning; but for breadth and comprehensiveness of range, for vigour and richness of thought, for fertility and abundance of invention, we have never met his equal. The great things that he did in preaching, in talking, in writing, for the last thirty years of his life, were accomplished rather by observation and thought, than by reading or study; of these his uncertain health made him incapable. Yet his acquisitions were of no mean order; a broad and deep foundation had been laid in the severe studies of his youth and earlier manhood; and he had a wonderful sort of intuition, if such it may be called, into all forms of human thought and knowledge. His judgment was so profound, that on all subjects of an ethical, political, or religious character, his a priori judgments were of more value than most other men's conclusions on the largest collection of facts would be.

But grand as was Dr. Olin's intellectual being, his moral life was still grander. So overshadowing, indeed, was its majesty, that we can hardly contemplate any portion of his nature apart from it. The whole truth, were we to set it down as our eyes see it, would, perhaps, be judged by those who did not know Dr. Olin, to be but another addition to the fond exaggerations of friendship. We see so much of earthliness in men, even in men of deservedly high name and station, that it is hard to believe in a life free from this base alloy. If man can be free from it, he was. He walked on in the daily path of life, spending his great mind in the service of the humblest of his fellows more cheerfully than if he had been serving kings-in the world, working for the world, but not of it. Presenting in himself an embodiment of the loftiest ideal of human purity and love, it was the effort of his life to raise others to breathe in his own celestial heights.

Not that he felt himself to be thus elevated. The crowning beauty of his

whole nature was its humility. Severe as was his virtue, he knew too well that, after all, it was not his, ever to know or think himself more virtuous than others. And so, charity, the meek attendant of humility, was ever by his side. In all things else but intellectual and moral pride, he would have been a fit companion for those great spirits that taught of old in the Stoa, or discoursed of virtue and beauty in the groves of the Academy. He had their supreme love of truth,—he had their profound contempt for all that is low, grovelling, and earthly, but he had, too, what they had not, a clear apprehension of the relation between man and his Creator, and a deep sense of the corruption and debasement of humanity as estranged from God.

And the basis of this high morality was laid in pure religion-in an humble and total self-consecration to the service of God his Creator, and in a most ardent love of Christ, his Redeemer. He had but one aim in life-to realize a high idea of Christian holiness, and so to promote Christ's kingdom upon earth. To this point all his studies tended, for this all his intellectual treasures were lavished-for this he freely spent his worldly goods,-to this he devoted health, and strength, and life.

The highest style of man is that which combines a loving heart with high intellectual and moral power. A more genial and affectionate nature than Stephen Olin's we never knew. His religious affections overflowed in the broadest Christian sympathy for the race; while upon his family and friends he lavished a wealth of love which few men are endowed with. His social life was all affection and tenderness. His friendship! O! how pure, and deep, and ardent it was! Could we unveil the inner sanctuary in which the sacred things of love and friendship are, and must be, guarded, we could show many a treasure, all the fruit of his overflowing heart. With his friends there was no restraint or reserve. His whole heart was poured forth in the gushing flow of sympathy. He delighted, too, in all the manifestations of affection-"in the detail of feeling—in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within-to count, as it were, the very pulses of the life of love."

With such qualities of mind and heart, it is not wonderful that he was preeminent as a preacher. In overmastering power in the pulpit, we doubt whether living, he had a rival, or dying, has left his like among men. Nor did his power consist in any single quality-in force of reasoning, or fire of imagination, or heat of declamation-but in all combined. His course of argument was always clear and strong, yet interfused throughout with a fervid and glowing passion-the two inseparably united in a torrent that overwhelmed all who listened to him. His was, indeed, the

"Seraphic intellect and force,

To seize and throw the doubts of man;

Impassion❜d logic which outran

The hearer in its fiery course."

Of his writings we have left ourselves no room to speak. More fitting space for this, and a better time, will come hereafter. It is the grand totality of his character that we have sought to express-yet our feeble utterances have fallen below our aim. His life, his spirit, and his death, are fitly embodied in a noble strain of Wordsworth's, that reads almost as if it were written for him:

"Who is the happy warrior? who is he,

That every man in arms would wish to be?
"Tis he...

Who fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows-
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means, and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire-
Who therefore does not stoop or lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state-
Whom they must follow-on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all-
Who, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of heaven's applause,-
This is the happy warrior-this is he,

Whom every man in arms should wish to be."

ART. X.-SHORT REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.

(1.) AUGUSTUS NEANDER devoted his life, from 1810 to 1850, chiefly to the study of the history of Christ's Church. The results of this life-long devotion have been, to a great extent, brought before American readers in the several translations of the "Life of Christ," the "History of the Apostolic Age," and the "Church History." In 1822, with a view to make Church history conducive to general Christian edification, he published " Denkwürdigkeiten aus der Geschichte des christlichen Lebens," (Memorabilia from the History of the Christian Life, 3 vols.,) which was very successful, having passed through three editions. A very dear friend of ours undertook a translation of the whole work some years ago, but was called away (alas!) before this and other noble projects of a noble mind could be accomplished. The work now before us (Light in Dark Places; or Memorials of Christian Life in the Middle Ages) is a translation of part of the second volume, made, and very well made too, by an English lady. It is divided into two parts: I. The operations of Christianity during and after the irruptions of the barbarians; II. Memorials from the History of Missions in the Middle Ages--both covering periods of romantic interest in the history of the Church, and affording many examples of pure faith, entire devotion, and heroic fortitude, in the ages of the Church's greatest trials and darkness. We give a few specimens of the graphic narratives with which the book abounds:

"GERMANUS OF AUXERRE (ANTISTODORUM).-Such was Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, who held this office in 418, from the narratives of whose life and labours we will here give some extracts. It happened, about ten years after his entering on his office, that he was summoned by Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, into Britain, in order to oppose the spread of the Pelagian doctrine, as a system which taught men to rely rather on their own strength than on the grace of the Redeemer, and by the illusions of self-righteousness alienated them from the essence of true inward holiness. They preached not only in the churches, but in the streets, and in the fields; whithersoever they went, these zealous men gathered crowds

around them, to whom they proclaimed the grace of God. The Britons, who could obtain no assistance from the falling Roman empire, were then driven to great distress by a war with the wild Saxons and Picts. Both bishops were called into the British camp, and their presence infused into the desponding Britons as much courage and confidence as if an army had come to their help. As it was a season of fasting, the bishops preached daily amid the perils of war, and many were induced by their sermons to be baptized. At Easter the church was splendidly decorated and garlanded with green boughs for the festival of their baptism. The Britons enjoyed their Easter festivities in quiet. The Picts had, indeed, formed a project to take advantage of their negligence, in order to surprise them unarmed; but their design was discovered, and Germanus showed the Britons a valley enclosed by mountains, where they could wait the coming of the foe. He himself went thither with them, and told them, when he should cry Hallelujah, all to join him with one accord. This was done, and the loud accordant cry of the vast multitude resounding amongst the hills, made so powerful an impression on the Picts, that they fled precipitately.

At another time, when he was just returned from a second journey to Britain, his aid was besought by the inhabitants of the province of Bretagne, to avert a great danger which threatened that region; Aëtius, then a distinguished and influential general of the Western Empire, having called in the king of a wild tribe of Alani to chastise them for a revolt. As the biographer of Germanus relates, he, a gray-headed man, yet through the protection of Christ stronger than all, went alone to encounter the warlike people and the heathen king. He passed calmly through the midst of the army to the king; and when the monarch would not hearken to him, but persisted in riding on, he seized his bridle-rein. His daring so astounded the rude warrior, that he yielded, promising to spare the province until the bishop should have endeavoured to procure a pardon for it from the imperial government. In order to effect this, Germanus immediately set out for Italy. On his way he joined a company of poor mechanics, who were returning to their homes after having completed a bargain in a foreign country. Amongst them was a lame old man, whose strength failed him when he had to follow the rest in wading through a brawling torrent with his heavy burden. Germanus relieved him of his burden, and carried first the burden, and then the old man, through the stream.

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'As he was coming out of the rich city of Milan, where he had been preaching a great deal, some poor people met him, begging alms. He asked his attendant deacon how large their store of money was. The deacon replied that he had not more than three gold pieces left. Thereupon the bishop desired him to distribute it all among the poor. But, then, what shall we live on to-day?' asked the deacon. Germanus replied: God will feed his poor. Only do thou give away what thou hast.' But the deacon thought he would be more prudent; so he gave two pieces away, and kept back one. When they had travelled a little farther, two horsemen came after them, to entreat a visit in the name of a rich landed proprietor, who, with his family, was afflicted with many diseases. The place lay off the road, and his attendants therefore entreated Germanus not to accept the invitation, but he answered: 'It is the first thing of all to me to do the will of my God.'

"When the horsemen heard that he had resolved to come, they presented him with the sum of two hundred solidi, (a gold coin of the time,) which had been given them for Bishop Germanus. Germanus gave it to his deacon, and said: Take this, and acknowledge that thou hast robbed the poor of one hundred of these pieces; for if thou hadst given all to the poor, He who repayeth a hundredfold would have restored to us three hundred pieces to-day.' His arrival diffused universal joy at the estate; he visited master and servant, with equal sympathy, on their sick beds; he went even into the poorest huts, and strengthened all by prayer.

"At the imperial court of Ravenna, Germanus received universal honour; and he could easily have obtained whatever he wished. The empress sent to his dwelling a large silver vessel full of costly provisions. Germanus divided the victuals amongst his servants, and kept the silver for himself, in order to lay it out to the best advantage for the poor. As an acknowledgment, he sent the empress a wooden dish with black bread upon it, such as he was accustomed to