of England, they, who make such an assertion, labour under a great mistake.

To say nothing of the disapprobation, forcibly indicated by the matured rejection of what had once been incautiously adopted: to say nothing of this, which is far more striking than an unvaried rejection from the very first, because it plainly imports examination and deliberation; our Church, in the third part of the Elisabethan Homily concerning Prayer, reprobates, in express terms, Prayers for the Dead, not only as at length connected with a belief in Purgatory, but likewise on the separate and independent score of their own scripturally demonstrated inherent or abstract inutility and folly. For the judicious Homilist, whom she employed, and whose work she has made strictly her own by her formal ratification of it, carefully distinguishes these two points, so as to leave no room for shuffle or evasion by, first, generally rejecting ALL Prayers for the Dead, as being palpably unscriptural and thence altogether unauthorised; and by, next, particularly rejecting them, as connected with the vain superstition of Purgatory.

After stating, that, if we will cleave only unto the Word of God, then must we needs grant that we have no commandment to pray for them that are departed out of this world; and after reciting the words of Abraham in the parable of Dives and Lazarus: the excellent writer proceeds; These words, as they confound the opinion of helping the dead by prayer, so they do clean confute and take away the vain error of Purgatory.

Here we have plainly Two points insisted upon; and not, as some moderns would persuade us, only the SINGLE point of Prayers for the Dead purgatorially offered up.

The Two points are: first, Prayers for the Dead under the general aspect of thus helping them in some indefinite way which we pretend not to explain; and, secondly, Prayers for the Dead under the particular aspect of delivering them from Purgatory.

According to the Church speaking in her Homily, the words of Holy Writ confound the advocates of the one point, and clean confute the advocates of the other point: so that, if we adhere to Scripture, we are bound to reject BOTH points alike.

It is observable, that the Homilist finally winds up the whole argument with repeating his introductory distinction of Prayers for the Dead into general and particular: general, as referring to ALL such Prayers, on whatever ground they might be offered up; particular, as referring to such Prayers, as might be specially offered up for souls supposed to be suffering in Purgatory.

Let us not therefore dream, EITHER of Purgatory, OR of Prayer for the souls of them that be dead: BUT let us earnestly and diligently pray for them which are expressly commended in Holy Scripture; namely, for kings and rulers, for ministers of God's holy word and sacraments, for the SAINTS OF THIS WORLD (an evident explanatory reference to Ephes. vi. 18; the text, from which Dr. Brett would establish the duty of praying for the SAINTS OF ANOTHER WORLD) otherwise called the faithful; to be short, for all men LIVING.

Nothing, I should think, can be more plain than this well weighed

language of our Reformed Church. The EITHER and the OR distinguish the two sorts of Prayer for the Dead: and the disjunctive BUT, by teaching that we ought to pray for the living, unequivocally imports that we ought not to pray for the dead.

IV. On the whole, it may now be truly affirmed: that those professed members of our Church, who advocate Prayers for the Dead, are the ill-judging advocates of a practice, which has no warrant from Scripture, which was unknown in the Primitive Church, and which is at once rejected and reprobated by the carefully reformed Church of England. The practice, in short, lacks, alike, the imperial authority of the Bible, and the inferior evidential sanction of the quod SEMPER, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. Hence we may well fear, that its misguided advocates are dangerously venturing upon ground forbidden by the awful denunciation: in VAIN do they worship me, teaching for doctrines THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN. Sherburn House, Dec. 10, 1840.

THE SAME FOR EVER.-BY MRS. ABDY.

"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."-Hebrews xiii. 8.
THE same for ever! in fair nature's bowers,
Say, is there aught that change can never know?
Winter deprives the hawthorn trees of flowers,
And clothes the bank of primroses with snow:
The streams, that o'er my ear in summer came
Tuneful and silvery, flow not now the same.
The same for ever! do the chosen friends
I lov'd in youth unchang'd by time remain?
Oh! how the memory my bosom rends,
Of absence, death, inconstancy, and pain;
Some shadow darkens every honour'd name:
None of my early friends remain the same.
The same for ever! let me school my heart :
Does it still throb in warm unaltered trust:
Have I not seen hope's rosy dreams depart,
And youth's bright blossoms levell'd with the dust:
Change in another can I fitly blame,
When in myself I cease to be the same?

The same for ever! yes, I own a guide

Who hath my steps sustain'd, my wand'rings borne;
Oft from his counsels have I turn'd aside,
Yet still he waits in patience my return;
For me he suffer'd poverty and shame:
Oh! is not Jesus constantly the same?

Long centuries have pass'd away since he partook
The trials and the griefs of sinful men,

Yet still, he bends on us his watchful look-
Protecting, kind, and tender now as then;

Would that my heart could worldly thoughts disclaim,
And rest on Him who ever is the same.

THE HEROIC OR ROMANTIC AGES.-No I.

BY THE REV HENRY CHRISTMAS, M.A., F.S.A.

THE history of the heroic or romantic ages, may well be called "the superstition of history." The examination, however, of these fabulous records will well repay the time it would occupy, for it gives us the truest picture of national character, and throws much and important light upon mythology.

Before treating of the errors of history, it will be necessary to say a few words upon history itself, its origin and progress; and it then will be easy to see how truth became corrupted into fable, and the severity of history degenerated into romance. The earliest historians, among all nations, have been poets, either as in Wales and the Highlands, attached to persons or clans, or singing such songs as would be most likely to flatter the prejudices of the people. In the former case, as well as in the latter, though we may find sublimity of conception and splendour of expression, we shall look in vain for fidelity. Yet where the circumstances which preclude this truth cease to act-as, for example, in disputes among the same body, or in trifling circumstances where the passions of no party are concerned we may reasonably look for, and shall commonly find correctness. Thus when Homer magnifies to a superhuman extent the power and greatness of Achilles, the Greek, as well as the Englishman, took the description with the recollection, that this was the hero of the poem, and the favourite object of the author's eulogy. But when he casually hints that the fleet of Salamis was under the direction of the Athenians, the Amphyctyonic council considered him as affording direct historical testimony, and awarded that city to the Athenian republic in consequence, nor did their antagonists (and these antagonists were Spartans) dispute the justice of the decision. The same remark holds good when applied to the bards of England and Scotland, of Norway, Denmark, or, indeed, to the historical songs of any early period of history. The object of the poet, however, was rather to delight than to instruct, rather to magnify the achievements of his hero, than to record his real actions; and hence, when the ostensible purpose of the bards was not fulfilled, the graver historian stepped in, claiming the merit of impartiality, and casting aside those splendours of imagination with which it had been the chief labour of the poet to decorate his subject. Here, then, arose at once a new era in writing; the poet no longer laid claim to historical accuracy, and the historian renounced for ever the glory of invention. Setting aside the historical books of the Old Testament, which, from many causes, come not within the pale of our argument at present, the first who thus separated these essentially distinct species of writing was Herodotus, and with him, emphatically called the "Father of History," did she spring into existence in full and perfect beauty, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter. The ease and flowing grace of his style, his great erudition, and his indefatigable exertions to obtain full and correct information, set him far above all praise; nor ought we to tax him with credulity for admitting into his works so many improbable and romantic accounts.

We ought to remember that this great man had no written documents to refer to; that he was necessitated to take tradition as it was delivered to him: and if by his time it had become corrupt, it was not the fault of the collector. Indeed, the history of Herodotus may be very fairly considered as a valuable picture of the opinions of the times concerning those periods and nations of which he treats. It bears the stamp of truth on the grand chain of events; and if here and there we have an episode, or a scientific digression which bears with equal plainness the seal of fiction, we never have it upon the authority of Herodotus, but that he was told so, and sometimes that he cannot ask the reader to credit that whereof he decidedly doubts himself. Of his works I shall have occasion to take further notice before the close of our present investigation, and of no other Greek historian's productions: for though Thucydides be, according to an eminent writer, a great romancer, it is in a different and less useful way, inasmuch as a forger of speeches is doing far less service to the cause of literature than a collector of traditions. We must, to find the root of those curious particulars which have been at one time or other taken and credited as true history, refer, first to the set of ideas which mythology instilled into the minds of men: those wild legends of giants and spiritual essences, with which their religious creeds were crammed; and next, to the mere invention of men, who have either devised marvellous tales out of pure love for the wonderful, or else allegorized simple facts till they have made them wear an appearance so monstrous as to require an effort of faith to believe them which the better informed have uniformly declined to exert. To take a view of the nature and stream of romance, which, though widely different, yet runs constantly parallel to that of history, it will be necessary to begin, not with the Antediluvian period, or that which immediately succeeded the flood,-for these seem more expressly to belong to the former division,-nor with the history of the Patriarchs, which more concerns ecclesiastical than civil history; and, therefore, one of the first persons with whom romance has much to do, is that very celebrated character Og, king of Bashan.

The traditions of the Jews tell us that Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, the king of Bashan, were brethren; that Ög was born before the deluge; that his father was the angel Schamchiel, and the giants were the posterity of the fallen angels. "Now Og perished not in the flood, but rode upon the ark, and was as a covering thereof; and he was fed with the provisions which Noah gave him; for Noah bored a hole in the side of the ark and handed out to him his daily food, to wit, one thousand oxen, one thousand of every kind of game, and the same number of measures of liquid for drink. And this did Noah give Og, and Og consented to be the servant of Noah, and his children after him." This very much tends to increase our notion of the capacity of the ark, and the prodigious bulk of Og. We find Og pursuing his agreement, and acting in his capacity of servant to the descendants of Noah with laudable fidelity for some ages; and Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, was, we are told, the same personage. As to his size, the Talmud writers very much

The Heroic or Romantic Ages.

"And it came to differ one tells us that the soles of his feet were forty miles long, and he hid Abraham in the hollow of his hand. pass, that when Abraham did one day rebuke Og, that Og greatly trembled, and by reason of his exceeding fear, a tooth fell out of his head, so Abraham made an easy chair of the tooth, and sat Og had been the servant of Nimthereon all the days of his life." rod, and Nimrod gave him to Abraham, and he obtained his liberty and the kingdom of Bashan from the latter upon the following occasion:-When Eliezer, (that is, Og,) came into Mesopotamia to Bethel, being sent by Abraham on account of Rebecca, "Laban seeing the ear-rings, and being moved by covetousness, did mean to slay Eliezer; but he, by means of the holy word, Shemhamphorash, raised the camels into the air and stood upon the camels, so Laban saw his face beaming with brightness, and thought it was Abraham, so he said: Come in thou blessed of the Lord.' Now still he meant to poison Eliezer, inasmuch as he dared not fight hand to hand with him, for Laban saw Eliezer take the camels in his hand and carry them over the river. But when the dish, in which the poisoned food was, was placed before Eliezer, God, through love to Abrahan, changed it. So Eliezer escaped; but Bethuel did eat thereof and died." Eliezer, therefore, satisfactorily performed his mission, and his reward was freedom and a kindom.

He now resumed his old name, and with it his hatred to the people of God. During the war which the Israelites waged with the Canaanites-a war of exterminationr-Og was one of those who made the most desperate resistance: and we are told, as a matter of history, of his great size. What follows is not quite accordant with the dimensions of this noted giant, as preserved in holy writ-still less, however, with the outrageous pro"When, (says one of the Talmud portions which I before stated. treatises) the children of Israel pitched their camp before the city of Edrei, Moses said, to-morrow will we enter the city;' and the next day, before it was well light, before the people came nigh into the city, Moses opened his eyes and beheld Og sitting on the walls of the city, so Moses wist not what it was, and he said, 'so now the people have built a new wall in one night;' but the Lord said to Moses, it is Og whom thou seest, and his feet are eighteen ells in length:' so Og went forth and built sixty cities, and the smallest of them was sixty miles high."

This remnant of the Antediluvian Nephilim, was, however, now approaching the termination of his career; his opposition to the Israelites was doomed to be fatal to himself. One of the Talmud treatises favours us with the following account of his death-He inquired of what extent was the camp of the Israel"So he went and ites, and being told six miles, he resolved to tear up a rock of equal dimensions and cast it upon the camp.

plucked up a rock of six miles extent, and put the same on his head; but God caused ants to come upon it, and they made a hole in it, so that it fell about his neck, for the hole was directly over his head; and when he tried to remove it, the Lord caused his teeth to grow into it, so that he could not disengage his neck; so when Moses