hensive view of the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelations.* Upon the second of these manuals its author observes that it follows the order of development of revelation. "My purpose in instruction for the upper classes," he says, "is to bring religion near the young, principally but not exclusively on the side of the thinking faculties. Not that I am of the perverted opinion that the secrets of the kingdom of God can be comprehended and demonstrated from without it -no one is further than I am from that belief-but there is a knowledge of revealed truth, an understanding of Christianity based upon faith, upon which the apostles of our Lord insist with all earnestness; and to produce such an understanding I consider one of the most. important duties of the religious instructor, especially where he has to deal with youth already somewhat mature. At an age when reflection, not seldom doubt also, begin to govern, it is no longer sufficient and merely to testify to Christian truth in a simple manner; but it must be deduced from its fixed principles and from inner necessity. I know well that this is by no means all; that the proper and latest aim of religious instruction, life in Christ, is not in this way attained. And it was an especial object with me to bring forward the relations of revealed religion to heathenism and its manifold phases, and to discover points of connection between Christianity and the other efforts and knowledge of students; so that it might not be an isolated and separate thing in the midst of their studies of the classics, but a living central point of their whole knowledge and life. Thus it would become clear to them that Jesus Christ is the true light, that shineth in the darkness."

When the religious teacher advances with such Christian wisdom toward the teachers of other subjects, it only remains to be wished that they, on their part, would do the like. The Christian religion must be the heart of all instruction. No study is strange to it, though one may be nearer than another. For example: When the philologist is reading in Tacitus, with his pupils, the life of Tiberius, is not a comparison forced upon him between that and the cotemporary life of Christ? If in Tacitus and Suetonius we become acquainted with a dark and godless world, sunken in sins and hatred, the light, peace, holiness, freedom, and love of the gospel form an astonishing contrast; and we can scarcely believe that the Lord and his apostles lived at the same period with Herod, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. It seems as if, in the first century after Christ, extraordinary gifts of evil had been poured out, in contrast with the extraordinary gift of the Holy Ghost. How strongly, in Cicero De Natura Deorum, do we see a state of loss and uncertainty, and the need of a divine reve

*Of the importance of this general view I have already spoken.

lation! The teacher of history, especially, has innumerable opportunities of referring to Christianity. Or rather, is not the whole of history one great opportunity for the praise of Christ? Antiquity had been longing for him. Not the Jews only, but with more or less consciousness of it the heathen also-all were longing for salvation from sin and death. And all the greatness, goodness, and beauty of the new period was born of the world-renewing power of Christ. More will be said on this point in discussing separate studies; let us return once more to the proper religious instruction for gymnasia.

Prof. Thomasius says, "The aim of the whole (religious instruction in the gymnasia,) should be, in my opinion, to elucidate the Augsburg Confession; so that the pupil may leave the institution with the conviction that the faith which he has learned from the Holy Scriptures is also the faith and the confession of his church." In our own time of agitations and movements, within and without the church, this would be doubly necessary, especially for scholars who are not studying theology, and who will, therefore, afterward have little or nothing to do with ecclesiastical relations.

In continuation of the history of the apostles, a brief church history may be studied, giving especial prominence to the history of the Reformation, and to the missionary enterprises of our own day.

In many gymnasia is read, in the two higher classes, the New Testament in the original. Every person, properly informed on the subject, will approve of not putting it into the hands of beginners, that they may learn the elements of Greek by means of reading it, as is done in many pietistic schools. It is sufficiently well known how repulsive those books become to the pupil who has begun his studies in them. Fiat experimentum in re vili holds good in this case also. Grammar, at this reading of the New Testament, must rather be only a maid-servant. But a teacher who unites with pious regard for the Scriptures a thorough knowledge of language, will demonstrate to the pupil the importance of the assistance of so true a servant. And the same is true when he comes to learn the peculiar Greek of the New Testament. Alexander the Great was the means of extending the Greek language over a large area, which gave, indirectly, occasion for the Septuagint translation; and this first broke down the distinction in language between Jews and Gentiles, so that the Old Testament escaped from its esoteric position, and became accessible to the Greeks. The Septuagint, again, prepared the road for the Greek of the New Testament, and thus for the diffusion of Christianity.

It now becomes very important to consider the entirely different meanings of the same word in the heathen authors and in the New

Testament. It was requisite to describe a whole new spiritual world with the words of the old one, and thus the significance of these words was changed from a heathen to a Christian sense; they were transfigured.

This comparison of the New Testament with classical Greek follows naturally after previous studies in language; and is well adapted to bring out the contrast between heathenism and Christianity.

More advanced scholars will also perceive that the more detailed investigations in language of modern times have done much for the profounder and surer knowledge of the Bible, and have freed its interpretation more and more from capricious and innovating arbitrariness. The study of the particles, for instance, has often brought out a more delicate and elegant significance of some Bible word, which was beyond the reach of earlier interpreters. And the deeper it is penetrated, even in the philological sense, the deeper and more unfathomable does the Scripture appear.

Such a study of the original text, far from being a disadvantage, in point of edification, will furnish a firmer and deeper foundation for faith, and will render it more independent of opinions. There is a common notion that while, in reading Luther's translation, nothing but the meaning is to be attended to, and thus the reader can give himself entirely up to it, the reader of the original text must first labor through linguistic difficulties, which put hindrances in the way of his edification. But what if the same evil arises from precisely an opposite cause? It is well known that most men are very little impressed with the greatest natural phenomena-the blue vault of heaven, the sun, moon, stars, &c.—because they see them daily. The inhabitants of the vale of Chamouni wonder at Mont Blanc as little

as do the Neapolitans and Genoese at the sea. In like manuer, men become accustomed to the Holy Scriptures only too easily, and undergo a species of stupefaction about it because they know it from childhood, and even by rote. Nothing is so good a remedy against this stupefaction as to go from the translation back to the original What was known so long becomes suddenly new, and is also accompanied with a feeling that this original has a sure and unfathomable depth, stimulating to profounder feeling and living, which must be lacking even in the best translation.*

text.

Conscientious parents and teachers are often in doubt as to the proper amount of religious instruction in family devotions, in attend

* In relation to the reading of the New Testament in the original, I differ from the author of the excellent article "On Evangelical Religious Instruction in the Gymnasia," in the "Evangelical Church Gazette," (Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung,) 1841, No. 2, &c., although I quite agree with him in the main principle. In ascribing no great influence to religious in. struction in the family and by the confirming clergymen, while he depends entirely upon that in the gymnasium, he seems to have been influenced by his own experience. But how would it be if the gymnasia were quite heathen, and the family and the clergy Christian?

ing church, and in the employment of Sunday. They are doubtful whether they do not apply too little time to religious instruction, so as to omit some important part of it, by devoting to it a much less number of hours than to most other subjects of study.

The Lord has fixed one Sabbath to every six week-days. He knows well that man, oppressed by his earthly tabernacle, can not long endure the pure atmosphere of the lofty region of Sunday. This principle must be remembered in judging of the proportion of time to be observed between religious instruction and devotional exercises on one hand, and the remaining hours of study on the other. In case of doubt, it is better to give too little religious instruction than too much. Any one who has instructed children who have been previously overcrammed with religious teaching, even to repugnance and nauseation, will agree with me here. There is reason almost for despair, when such children hear of the Highest and Holiest with complete indifference; especially if they have been stupefied with diffuse and superficial explanations.

With regard to Sunday, care should be taken not to practice upon such a hyperpuritanical interpretation of the third commandment as will conflict with repeated expressions of Christ respecting the Sabbath. Such puritans as I refer to forbid even to do good on the Sabbath; even to knit stockings and make shirts for poor barefooted boys. They forbid truly spiritual music, the most innocent walks, and what not. Nothing could be imagined more proper to disgust children with the really pleasant system of Christianity. To this extravagant puritanism an opposite is a wicked indifference, which develops into frivolity and recklessness. The curse "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" was alleviated by a good God, by the ordinance of a day of rest, in which we may relieve ourselves of the earthly labor of the week, and, in looking forward to our heavenly rest, may enjoy a foretaste of it. It is an ignorant self-enmity with which so many transgress this most loving commandment, and labor restlessly on and on, like so many machines, week-days and Sundays together.

And what multitudes, in the most fearfully sinful manner, violate the day of the Lord-a dreadful desecration which is increasing terribly in our own times.

Every man should protect his own children from the company of such; and should say, like Joshua, "But as for me and my house, we 'will serve the Lord."

The subject should first be treated on the supposition that the family, the clergy, and the gymnasia are all Christian; and the case should afterward be dealt with where faith and piety are supposed to be lacking in either of them.

[Translated, for the American Journal of Education, from the German of Karl von Raumer.]

I. THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE 14th century ushered in a new era, the era of the restoration of the Greek and Roman classics. Classical learning became the goal of every desire; and this new ideal, pursued as it was with unremitting ardor, gave birth to new modes of teaching and of training.

Far different had been the ideal of the Middle Ages, and their character had been marked with striking peculiarities. But the Middle Ages had now passed away. Nevertheless their influence continued to be felt, even down to the time of the Reformation; for not until then did the new ideal obtain full and undisputed sway over the human mind.

Meanwhile the defenders of classical learning rejected with contempt every thing that savored of the past, and with them originated the so long received opinion of the darkness and barbarism of the Middle Ages. For it is only within our own times that champions have arisen to assert the claims of medieval learning also. The first question that here suggests itself is what standard ought we to adopt in judging of a period in which human efforts and achievements presented so many remarkable contrasts-grandeur and littleness, strength and weakness, depth and insipidity, beauty and repulsiveness, being mutually opposed to each other on every hand? But when we have fixed upon a correct standard, we are to apply it correctly and conscientiously; nor regard with a partial eye the bright side alone of our favorite epoch, and refuse to see any but the dark side of the period to which we are adverse.

Now Latinity constituted the chief standard by which the earlier moderns measured all attainments in learning. By as much as the Middle Ages were removed from the style of Cicero, by so much were they destitute (so thought these moderns) of all true learning, and given over to barbarism. Baronius applied to the period from the 10th to the 12th century, the epithets, iron, leaden, and dark. Compilations were made of the wretched Latin* of those centuries: es

Take, for instance, the etymology of Presbyter: "homo qui præberet suis iter; " or such a blunder as the following: " Baptizo te in nomine patria, filia et spiritus sanctus." In the "Epistles of Obscure Men," this sort of Latinity is held up to ridicule.