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highest aim and the ultimate object of all efforts at education. It intends, therefore, to instruct youths carefully in the holy Scriptures, to introduce them into the history of the kingdom of God, and of the Christian Church particularly, and to endeavour to convince them of the truth and the divine origin of Christianity-all on the basis of the Confession of Faith of the Evangelical Church. This end is also kept in view in the instruction in History and the Natural Sciences. Classical antiquity must be stripped of its "divinity," the delusive halo with which it has been surrounded by an apostate, heathenish philology. But nevertheless, the classics will be taught with greater thoroughness and earnestness than has been done by the method which has sprung from the Pantheistic philosophy.

The action of the Convention awakened a general interest in the subject throughout the Protestant Church in Germany; and at the Convention held in Elberfeld on the 15th of September 1851, it was found necessary to make the question as to the influence of the education of the gymnasia upon Christianity one of the regular topics of discussion. In vindication of the gymnasia it was urged that too much was required of them; that their influence was over-estimated; whilst, in fact, their tendency was towards a Christian education; that even the law required this of them. The speakers on this side endeavoured to show that even the various branches of instruction taken singly had a religious tendency. It was not Protestantism which excommunicated science. Those that designated the study of the heathen classics as unchristian, could not claim the example of Paul, and Basil the Great, and Augustine. It was Julian the apostate who wished to deprive the Christian schools of the study of the classics; but Luther, Melancthon, Spener, Francke, Neander, and others of this class, knew how to esteem it. Even in the arrangement of their studies, the gymnasia recognised the Christian faith as a distinct element. If, therefore, the state of religion was low and deplorable, it was not the gymnasia which could be accused on account of it, but the whole Church, and parents, preachers, and teachers. He that is without sin among you in this matter, let him first cast a stone, exclaimed the chief speaker for the gymnasia.

The principal speaker on the other side of the question was Dr Rumpel, the Director of the new Institution at Gütersloh. He said that the very question showed that the necessity was recognised of the gymnasium's giving Christian instruction, but that it was not doing it. It was therefore not incumbent on him to demonstrate that the gymnasia were not Christian, but the burden of proof lay with the opposite side. He endeavoured to show, not that classical studies were of a dangerous tendency, but that the great philologists from whose

schools the present generation of teachers had proceeded, had been alienated from the gospel. In their minds the spirit of antiquity had taken the place of the Spirit of God. Yet the treatment produced by this alienation was not confined to the instruction in the languages, but existed also in the other branches, such as History, Natural Sciences, and Mathematics. This whole current must be stemmed. Some Christian Wolf was needed for the classics. Some changes were undeniably needed; but as these were not, and could not be made instantaneously in the existing gymnasia, these Christian gymnasia had been established for Christian parents to have their children rightly instructed.

In the subsequent debate, various ways and means were proposed to bring the gymnasia back to Christianity. Professor Müller, of Halle, recommended chiefly the employment of theologians as teachers in the gymnasia. To this it was replied, that the attempt had been made to obtain such, but that the office of teacher was too toilsome a one, and offered too little compensation, to hold out sufficient inducement for theologians to enter it. Another minister thought that students of divinity ought to consider it a self-denying sacrifice required of them by their very profession to offer their services as teachers. Some objected to the name Christian gymnasia, for the new Institution, and wanted the term Church gymnasia substituted for it. Others recommended the reading of Latin and Greek Christian writers in preference to the classics. Dr Krummacher, of Berlin, closed the discussion with a characteristic speech, in which he said that the fault could not be justly charged upon any single agency; that it lay in the atmosphere, and that the religious teacher, as he was needed at this period, must be a very exorcist. The resolutions finally passed were to the intent that as the existing (State) gymnasia were Christian institutions, in their fundamental arrangement, as well as by the requisition of the law, it was the duty of the Evangelical Church, and of every Evangelical Christian, to contribute by every possible means towards making them what they ought to be; that, however, private gymnasia were useful as supplying a want felt in some sections of the country, and as serving for models to the State gymnasia, which needed such a stimulus; and that the Convention was glad to see such an institution founded at Gütersloh.

At the charges implied in this, the teachers of the gymnasia raised a loud clamour, and numerous and ingenious defences were constructed; nevertheless, the general absence of the true Christian spirit in a large portion of the teachers, of a cordial faith in the Son of God, and of a hearty zeal for his cause, so evident to all, could not be supplied by the most ingenious

apologies; besides, as they had conceded in the course of the debate that they left it to "the facts of history" to teach the pupil that the heathen were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," their position needed no further interpretation.

Yet it would be incorrect to suppose that all the gymnasia present this gloomy and cheerless aspect; that all the teachers had become apostate, and heathen or infidels at heart; or that corruption went on uninterruptedly, without a corresponding remedial power developing itself. The observer cannot have failed to mark that a better day is beginning to dawn in the conception and representation of antiquity. There are already pens busy showing that classical antiquity is of great importance in a Christian education; for its life and development are nothing but the unimpeded natural growth of the heart of man when left to itself. Both negatively and positively it points to Christianity. To exhibit this aspect of the bygone ages, and to lead the pupil to a perception of it, is the duty of the Christian philologist. Nor is this a mere ideal appellation; there are those that in all truth deserve it. To name only such as are somewhat better known on this side of the Atlantic, we would mention Lassaulx, a teacher in Bavaria, who has written a whole series of dissertations for the purpose of showing that all the mythology and religious rites of the Gentiles were but a σκία τῶν μελλόντων, the types and prophetic annunciations of what was to follow. In his Commentatio de mortis dominatu in veteres, Lassaulx has collected a number of passages from the classics, which give us a vivid image of the gloomy despondency and despair which forms the background of the bright surface described in Schiller's Gods of Greece as unbeclouded gaiety, youthful pleasure in this life, imperishable beauty, a paradise full of peace, a heaven on earth. Lassaulx presses from the ancients a confession which shows us their dread, their horror in view of the vanity and perishable nature of all earthly blessings, and in view of the losses they meet with on the one hand and on the other, their forced indifference, and spiteful, defiant resignation. Dr J. F. Kurtz, in Russia, who is well known in the theological world, has written several books of a similar bearing; in his History of the Old Covenant he has some pertinent remarks on the pedagogical design of Paganism.

Nägelsbach of Nürnberg, a scholar and linguist as accomplished as he is modest, says, that in his investigations on this subject he could not but perceive the longing and striving of the human mind after the possession of the one, the living, personal God, without which the soul could not be at rest or peace, and for which no pantheism could compensate.

* Some of Lassaulx's dissertations have been translated into English.

"This

seeking after God is the life-pulse of the whole religious development of antiquity." All their attempts failed, and the life of the ancients would exhibit before us motion and progress without a guiding star and without a centre, were it not that we knew that God has a constant witness of himself in the conscience of man, which being itself the moral law of good and evil, affords foundation and security to the existence of man. It was this law "written in their hearts," which sustained the life of the world until the time when the mind of man, exhausted and weary from its unsuccessful search after the living God, received that as a gift of grace from above, which it had been constantly seeking after.*

In chronological order, Creuzer should have been named sooner; but his theory is exceedingly liable to abuse, and has been abused by some of his English exponents. Still, in the preface to the third edition of his Symbolik und Mythologie, speaking of the unfavourable criticism the rationalists had passed upon his work, he says,—" They had begun to perceive that my investigations concerning the ancient religious systems led to a result which was diametrically opposed to their teachings. They start with the proposition that man is very good by nature, and needs only to perfect his reason to arrive at the highest felicity. But these investigations had shown that among almost all nations of antiquity there prevailed a vivid consciousness of spiritual corruption, and a desire after reconciliation with God." "Nor did my book please those who seek the utmost perfection of man in the element of beauty and in æsthetical manners." "Such æsthetic and poetic souls are loath to be reminded how deep the feeling of ruin and helplessness is, from which the sublimest poesies and the profoundest allegories of the ancients have proceeded."+

We have been somewhat more minute in showing that there is a difference between the Classics as they ought to be taught, and the Classics as they have been taught, that the reader may not confound some of the admirable features of the German system of education with the evils resulting from that system as handled by godless teachers. We may rest assured that the Christian need not turn away entirely from those " ages dark, obtuse, and steeped in sense," but that he may still derive great lessons from the wanton childhood of our world, when matter "stole the style of gods," for though Pride made the virtues of the Pagan world, yet

"The Stagirite, and Plato, he who drank

The poisoned bowl, and he of Tusculum,"

Homeric Theology, p. xii. seq.

+See in the Studien und Kritiken (1847, p. 211.) an account, how Ullman, the theologian, was influenced by Creuzer, the philologist, and how Creuzer's profound interpretation of the religious symbols of the ancients cured Ullman of religious scepticism.

who led an Augustine* and a Neander to the fountain of salvation, still point to Him who died to save lost man, and raised him from his moral grave.

ART. V.-1. The Standard Psalm Tune Book, containing upwards of 600 specimens, comprising all the available Tunes in the English, Scotch, and Genevan Psalters, with many others from the German Choral Bücher, and other authentic sources, many of them rare; the whole faithfully compiled from the Original Editions, and arranged for Four Voices, with an Organ Accompaniment. By HENRY EDWARD DIBDIN, Organist of Trinity Chapel, Edinburgh. Published by Dalmaine and Co., London. 1851.

2. Notices regarding the Metrical Versions of the Psalms received by the Church of Scotland. (From the Appendix to Principal Baillie's Letters and Journals, Vol. III.) By DAVID LAING, Esq. Edinburgh, 1842.

THE employment of vocal psalmody in the service of God is, without all doubt, of the highest antiquity. Nature itself teaches us that the tongue, which is the glory of man, ought not to be silent in his Maker's praise; and the voice of song, in which the heart instinctively gives utterance to its overflowing joys and griefs, must find its noblest theme and its highest inspiration in celebrating the glories of the Supreme Being. May we not suppose that the practice was coeval with man?

"For neither various style,

Nor holy rapture, wanted they to praise
Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced or sung,
Unmeditated; such prompt eloquence

Flowed from their lips, in prose, or numerous verse,
More tuneable than needed lute or harp
To give more sweetness."

It is certain that as soon as 66 men began to call upon the name of the Lord," in the acts of social worship, sacred psalmody formed one of its parts. "The church in the wilderness was inaugurated by a song of triumph sung at the Red Sea: "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." And when the same church was brought into its templeglory at Jerusalem, the harp of David, which had cheered him

* "Ille vero liber" (he speaks of Cicero's Hortensius, a philosophical treatise, only a few fragments of which are extant)" mutavit adfectum meum, et ad te ipsum, Domine, mutavit preces meas, et vota ac desideria mea fecit alia.”—(August. Conf. iii, 4.)

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