it is so. A resort to this additional and legitimate source of argument will ultimately have its benign and elevating effect on every sect. We only adduce the fact in its bearing on ecclesiastical literature. Every sect, if not every minister, has begun to feel its indispensable importance. The Baptist, the Congregationalist, the Presbyterian, the Quaker, the Prelatist all zealously plead prescription. And even the Mormons not long since employed an enlightened Jewish convert to teach them Hebrew! What, then, is to be the fate of that sect, if such there be, that shall neglect to defend itself against weapons drawn from the ancient arsenal? And how is this defence to be made, except by weapons from the same source? When the Protestant Reformers were overwhelming the Pope with this armor, he put the youthful Baronius in a course of training for this species of defence, and bade him devote his life to the writing of Christian Annals for the support of his tottering throne. And, next to political machinations and the civil sword, it proved its best support.

But this brings us to say, that we have controversies from without, that imperiously demand an acquaintance with the doctrines and usages of the early church. This same popery, if met at all to any good purpose, is still to be met with the sword of the Spirit in the right hand, and the shield of ecclesiastical history in the left. Both are indispensable to the success of any combatant in this long and recently reviving conflict. Prescription is here, indeed, the main plea. And who can deal with such an argument, without knowing the grounds on which it rests?

Infidels, too, and skeptics of every class, from the days of Voltaire and Gibbon and Hume, have delighted to assail Christianity within the citadel of her own literature. Generally, they hate the word of God too bitterly to study it enough to learn even its more plausible points of assault. But history is often their delight, as it has been so extensively their triumphant boast. To glean the scandal of the church and her inconsistencies, and place them in their

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most revolting attitudes, and then charge the whole on Christianity itself, has been their favorite and most successful mode of warfare, from the early periods of Celsus and of Porphyry, down to the now famous Strauss, who is at this moment agitating Germany afresh by another publication, "The Christian Dogma in its contest with Science."

Nor are these contests confined to those who move in the higher walks of literature. It is truly marvellous to see with what celerity the essence of some new moral malaria is invisibly wafted, by the prince of the power of the air, from a German or a French university to the lovely prairies of our far West. There our domestic missionary has to meet it in all its virulence; and if too ignorant of the history of his own religion to comprehend or cope with the new difficulty, both he and his religion are branded afresh with the stigma of stupidity.

Nor are these contests, whether from within or without, merely so much matter of unmitigated regret. Like their own baleful instigator, they are yet made to subserve some useful purposes. They are the needful fire to burn up the wood, hay and stubble in the fabric of every sect, and of the whole church. What, we may ask, would that church have been, had she never been assailed by foes from abroad? Just what, in many respects, the quiet dark ages were making her. For what friend would ever have had the heart to shiver her unsound arguments for the truth? And who can tell the amount of paralyzing superstitions that would have continued to cluster around those spurious materials?

THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD.

FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

BY GEORGE W. HAVEN.

"TAKE ye the world," cried Jove, from highest heaven;
"Take ye the world; to you it now is given;
The world your lasting heritage shall be;
Take then the gift, and share it brotherly."

Then youth and age tumultuous sped amain,
In hasty zeal each golden prize to gain;
The ploughman gleaned apace the nodding corn,
While mid the forest rang the squire's loud horn.

The merchant garnered wealth from every land;
And portly priests chose wines of choicest brand;
While kings claimed tithes, and eke the right to lay
Their tolls on bridges and the public way.

When now was left nor earth nor earthly thing
Unclaimed by lord or tradesman, priest or king;
Forth from the shadowy realm of dream and song
The heedless poet urged his steps along ;

Then prostrate fell before the throne of love,
And plaintive sought the listening ear of Jove :
"Behold! he cried, "thy fondest son is left
Houseless and poor, of every largess reft!"

"And whose the fault," said Jove, "if 't was thy will
To dwell, mid shadowy dreams, in idlesse still!
Where wert thou lingering when the earth was given?"
"With thee!" replied the poet, "in thy heaven.

"Mine eye intent thy wondrous power to see,
And rapt mine ear with heavenly harmony;
Forgive thy son, who, bent to praise thy name,
Hath all forgot his heritage to claim."

"The world," said Jove, "the world is mine no more,
Claimed are its fields and marts on every shore;
But if thou 'lt dwell within my heaven with me,
Come when thou wilt, its gates shall open be."

RHYMES BY A NORTHMAN.

BY BENJ. B. FRENCH.

THE following stanzas were addressed to the Hon. WARREN R. DAVIS, a member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina, at the time the Nullification fever was raging at the South. The author was then Assistant Clerk of the House.

MEN of the ever-verdant South, where winter never comes

To chill the current of your souls- your bright and sunny homes
Fit dwellings are for chivalry - for high and virtuous mind,
And honor, love, and glory are within your hearts enshrined.

Then envy not our yankee land of pumpkin pies and trade,
The little notionalities in which our "specs are made;
We'll make your cotton into cloth, e'en to the latest crop,
And if we 've any thing you want, why, wont we always swop?

Then let us live like brethren still within this happy land,
And, like our fathers, let us be one firm united band;
Oh never be our stripes and stars from out our banner torn,
Nor may those who succeed us here a severed Union mourn!

THE IDEAL OF A TRUE LIFE.

BY HORACE

GREELEY.

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THERE is, even on this side the grave, a haven where the storms of life break not, or are felt but in gentle undulations of the unrippled and mirroring waters, - an oasis, not in the desert, but beyond it, a rest, profound and blissful as that of the soldier returned for ever from the dangers, the hardships and turmoil of war, to the bosom of that dear domestic circle, whose blessings he never prized at half their worth till he lost them.

This haven, this oasis, this rest, is a serene and hale old age. The tired traveller has abandoned the dusty, crowded and jostling highway of life, for one of its shadiest and least noted by-lanes. The din of traffic and of worldly strife has no longer magic for his ear, the myriad footfall on the city's stony walks is but noise or nothing to him now. He has run his race of toil, or trade, or ambition. His day's work is accomplished, and he has come home to enjoy, tranquil and unharassed, the splendor of the sunset, the milder glories of late evening. Ask not whether he has or has not been successful, according to the vulgar standard of success. What matters it now whether the multitude has dragged his chariot, rending the air with idolizing acclamations, or howled like wolves on his track, as he fled by night, from the fury of those he had wasted his vigor to serve? What avails it that broad lands have rewarded his toil, or that all has, at the last moment, been stricken from his grasp? Ask not whether he brings into retirement the wealth of the Indies or the poverty of a bankrupt, whether his couch be of down or rushes, his dwelling a

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