and stimulated the gradual transmutation of the primitive Christian ministry into a priestly order. It was, under a modified form, the triumph of the judaizing temper of the Apostolic Age. The tradition coincided with a fixed phase of churchly organization, and so for ages, men believed without questioning, that S. Peter was the first Roman bishop. When however we ask for the evidence of the belief, we find the facts against it. When we seek to know the "acts" of Peter we are referred only to legends, which were as thick in the early Church as "leaves in Valombrosa." Scatter them as we may, pronounce them worthless as often as we will, we are met always by the last refuge of the unreasoning mind, that what has been believed so long and by so many, must be true. And against such a retort to critical investigation, the immortal Gods themselves fight in vain.

According to the Roman Catholic theory we are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. And the Pope, as the occupant of the chair of Peter, asks us, invites us to become reconciled to the Church, out of which there is no salvation, and to accept him as our spiritual guide, because he is Peter. We owe it to ourselves to inquire into his origin, to examine his credentials; but these simply are not at hand. Shall we like the infallibilists fly in the face of all Christian history? No! We adhere to the history. Paul himself is without the walls of Rome. His superb basilica, in its stately magnificence, is isolated. His genius does not as yet enter within the gates. During these long ages the Roman Church has not known his voice! And had he not found a home in the hearts of the northern races, it might seem as if he had run in vain!" We too can afford to live apart from Rome, much as we love the cause of Christian unity, as long as its system rests upon the shadows which involve the history of the Church from the death of S. Paul down to the middle of the second century--as long in fact, as Rome herself cannot find S. Peter, but only believes concerning him what history does not teach. We should hold resolutely in the meanwhile to the duty of learning, as far as may be, the history of the second century, because from that time down to the present, the prerogatives of Peter have been measured by the claims and pretensions of his supposed successors in the sacred office.

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First of all Peter's name was associated in the West with the name of Paul; then the chair of Peter was, in the third century, as we learn from Cyprian, becoming a throne; for the Church of Rome was then spoken of as the principal Church whence sacerdotal unity took its rise;-later the Church of Rome was found to be a rock, in the persons of its bishops the successors of the Lord's Peter, the rock upon which He said He would build His Church; later still, the Pope as Peter's successor claimed to be the source of all power on earth whether in the secular or in the spiritual world; last of all he has, as Peter's successor, been pronounced the infallible chief of the Catholic Church. Always Peter grows in dimensions as the Pope grows -Peter must shrink as the Pope shrinks. Perhaps it is well that the system rests upon a shadow-that the other end of the long line of the papal succession is held by a hand which moves as a cloud in the air.

But we conclude: If it be almost certain that Peter could not have been the presiding officer of the Roman Church, and if it be absolutely certain that he had no powers to transmit which he did not share equally with the other apostles, what becomes of the Papacy? It must, in due time, be voted down, as the people of the States of the Church have voted down the temporal power. For an institution, no matter how grand, how mighty its sway, how vast the sweep of its movements, if it rest upon a fiction, must be brought to an abrupt end-it cannot survive the discovery. It is often said that the weaknesses of a man are to be found in close proximity with his real strength. One of the sources of the real strength of the Church of Rome is its traditionalism; genuine history exposes its weaknesses, and scatters the glamour with which it is invested.

ARTICLE II.-ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK.

THE question what pronunciation of the Greek language ought to be adopted among modern scholars and students, has excited much discussion and received various answers. The systems which have been formed in the attempt to answer it differ widely in themselves and in their results when put into practice. It is our purpose to discuss briefly some of these systems or theories, in the hope of contributing to form the opinions of teachers and students as to which method has the best basis and serves best our use of the language.

I. Some tell us we ought to pronounce Greek as the ancients did, so nearly as we can discover and reproduce their practice. They must have known best how to pronounce their own language, and if we read the words of Plato or Demosthenes we ought to make every effort to sound them as they sounded them. To this plan there rises at once the objection that the pronunciation of the ancients undoubtedly varied from age to age (to say nothing of the more delicate differences of dialect), so that in our college reading, ranging perhaps from Homer to Plutarch or Lucian, we include the variations of eight or ten centuries. Shall we try to ascertain the stage of pronunciation proper for the time of each author, and laboriously change from one to the other, giving a different set of sounds to the words of Homer, of Pindar, of Thucydides, of Plato, of Demosthenes, of Aristotle, of Plutarch, of Lucian? No, say the advocates of this method, but take the period of most perfect development of the language, say the period of Plato and Xenophon, fix upon the pronunciation for it, and use that for every author. To this there are two objections. First, there is no sufficient reason why we should endeavor to ascertain and adopt the ancient pronunciation. There is no absolute right in the matter of pronouncing a language. Usage is the admitted rule for living languages, but those which are dead, if the usage cannot be determined, we are at liberty to pronounce as we may think best for the purpose for which we use them.

Second, it is so difficult as to be practically impossible to ascertain precisely and certainly what was the received pronunciation of Greek at any given point in so remote antiquity. The differences of opinion among scholars sufficiently prove this. We must depend mainly on the descriptions of sounds left us by ancient writers, and it is nearly as difficult to convey in written words an idea of sounds, as it is to describe a color to one who is blind. Especially will this be found true of a language in which the distinctions of sound were so delicate that the mistake of an actor, who said yalny op instead of yan' op, was detected at once and laughed at by his audi

ence.

II. Others maintain that Greek and Latin, being dead languages, have no rights to be respected, and should be pronounced by every nation according to the rules of its own language. This is the prevailing custom on the continent of Europe and in England, and has been general in this country until lately. It was defended, so far as concerned Latin, with much earnestness and ability by a writer in this Journal for January, 1861. It was there urged that the adoption of a new pronunciation for Latin would unsettle the sounds of Latin words familiarly used in English, such as prima facie, quid pro quo, etcetera, as well as English words derived directly from Latin and retaining a great similarity of form, as necessity, civil, lucid. Of course the same argument would apply to Greek, though in less degree, but there seems to be little force in it in either case. The few Latin phrases used in English speech need not by any means follow the pronunciation which we adopt for the language in our schools. Most people who study Latin learn etcetera, as a naturalized English word with an English pronunciation, long before they decline penna. These familiar phrases would keep their old sounds in peace, and no one would be troubled by the difference. The parallel case of French words has been settled so. We use Paris, Versailles, champagne, envelope, franchise, cotillion, and many other borrowed French words, sounding them as English, but no one would think of giving them this pronunciation when he read them on a French page. It is the same with regard to words derived more remotely from Greek or Latin and retaining a

similarity of form. An argument from this source against a special pronunciation of those languages would apply with equal force against a special pronunciation of German, French, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese. In the words above mentioned there is as great a similarity between the English forms and those of the Romance languages as between the English and the Latin. Shall then all the Romance languages be pronounced on English rules? This is enough to show the insignificance of the difficulty on this score of giving a special pronunciation to Greek and Latin. We learn the pronunciation of living languages without fear of injuring thereby our command of our own or of affecting the common pronunciation of English words derived or borrowed from them. Indeed it may be urged with reason that the learning a special pronunciation is a material part of the benefit involved in learning a new language. It is admitted that to learn another language besides one's vernacular is a benefit, that it widens the mental horizon and gives truer views of the vernacular itself and new conceptions of the expression of thought. It does one good to take a position outside of his native tongue, so as to look back upon it. The same may with justice be said of the acquisition of a new pronunciation. It disciplines the tongue and makes it more flexible and obedient. It gives a better understanding of the peculiarities of pronunciation in one's own language, especially if the new one be historically connected with it. It cultivates the memory and power of observation and trains the ear to the distinctions of phonetics. If then it is true that it is a benefit to a man to acquire other languages than his own and that every new language learnt helps to the acquisition of another, in the same way, though of course in less degree, it is true that it is good for a man to carry in his head as many pronunciations as he can. The danger of confusing them is so

slight as to be inappreciable.

Further, we object to this system of pronouncing the classical languages according to the rules of one's own tongue, that it introduces confusion and variety where uniformity and mutual intelligibility are desirable. So great is the facility of intercourse now between different countries that those engaged in the same pursuits in America and Germany not only know