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THE

PRINCETON REVIEW.

JULY, 1870.

No. III.

Art. I. — TholucJc’s View of the RightYYaig of Preaching .*

Although it is true that of late the churches are here and there somewhat better filled than formerly, especiall}’’ where zealous preachers proclaim the Word, yet in many places we find them more and more deserted. The services of Sunday afternoon, and of the week day have been given up for want of hearers. Of entire classes, such as public officers, military and professional men, there is often seen only a single indi- vidual, like some relic of antiquity in the old cathedrals.

In numerous cities and villages, church attendance is almost wholly confined to the middle and lower classes. And even among these, many think it sufficient if they do not forbid the attendance of their wives and children. Unless there is a change, it will soon be the case in some sections of the country, that in our places of worship we shall find, as indeed on Sunday afternoons we now frequently do, only women and children, as was the case during the second cen- tury in the temples of Rome.

* This article is a translation, by an accomplished American lady, of Counsels to the modern German Preacher , being Dr. Tholuck’s Preface to his secoud series of Sermons.

vol. xLn. — no. in.

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I speak here of what is very common in a great part of Protestant Germany. There are, of course, many cheering exceptions. In whole districts, from long-established custom, clmrch-going is as general now as it was formerly. This is the case in Wurtemberg and in a number of the Saxon prov- inces. Besides, there are individual preachers who, by their brilliant oratorical gifts, know how to draw together a culti- vated audience. There are also those who fill the churches by their bold exhibition of Gospel truths.

Good clmrcli-attendance, therefore, is either the continued influence of an earlier and happier period, the effect of dis- tinguished talent in the preacher, or the fruit of a strong and newly awakened faith. But with the greater part of the pub- lic, the customs of this former period are becoming more and more obsolete. Teller once preached a sermon to sixteen hearers, in which he warned them against the error of consid- ering church-going an essential part of Christianity.

This doctrine, which he and others like him inculcated, has borne its legitimate fruit. Every year in the cities, and from their example in the villages also, the number is continually lessening of those who attend divine service, either from habit or a sense of duty. The magnetic power of brilliant oratory is imparted to but few ; and even of these there are many in- stances where neither this attraction nor that of a heart glow- ing with faith is sufficiently strong to turn back to the church the better-educated classes who are setting from it in full tide.

The prospect for the future appears still more gloomy. Will those times ever return when, at the sound of the bell, the father, bearing his hymn-book under his arm, hastened with all his family to the house of God ? when every pew contained a household ? when it was matter of common remark, if, in the seats of the church officers or magistrates, there was a single vacant place? Will those times return, when the faithful pastor shall find, not a scanty representation from different sections of the town, but his whole flock col- lected as one man before him. Many a preacher now stands in his pulpit who is forced to cry out with Harms, “Ah, Lord, one thing only I ask of thee, that I may not preach to empty seats.'1 ’

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By wliat means can the educated classes be induced once more to join in public worship? Even at the very time when aversion to this worship arose, such a delusion was prevalent, that Marezoll, a very popular preacher, advised his brethren to present fewer and fewer of those positive truths of Christianity, for which the cultivated cherish unconquerable dislike ; thus, in homoeopathic fashion, proposing to cure the unbelief of the hearer by the unbelief of the preacher. The time of this delusion has gone by. Many now feel that the preacher, if he would fill the church, must enter it as a man called to unfold the mysteries of God. Faith, however, is not the only thing necessary in order to win back our educated classes to the service of the sanctuary.

We must extend the hand toward the despisers of religion among the learned. One important reason why evangelical preachers often fail to attract this class, is, that they speak from the circle of faith to those standing within that circle, thus rendering themselves unintelligible to those without it. The power of habit in the form and style of the sermon has an injurious influence. Although Scripture truth presented in this form bore blessed fruits for centuries, yet it was at a pe- riod when faith was a vital element in the religion of the peo- ple. This period, for the middle and higher classes, is almost entirely past. To them the Bible narratives are a fable-world, illuminated by a magical mingling of light and shade.

In order to make apparent the difference between the past and the present, the past should be recalled. Let the preacher, as was then common, request his people to bring their Bibles with them, in order to satisfy themselves that he declares not the word of man, but that of the eternal God. And to estab- lish the truth on every important point, let him call on them to open at the text he cites. “ This is altogether too simple,” the cultivated ladies and gentlemen would exclaim.

We ought not, however, to find fault with them on this account, because for many of them there is no longer any word of God. In this circle there is at most only traditional faith enough to allow the minister to open the Bible and read from it a proof-text. And even this many look upon as a stage stroke for effect. The preacher must therefore begin

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and build anew. Not that he should come out from the strong, high tower of his faith founded upon revelation, and descend to that wide, treeless desert where one is driven hither and thither by the rising and falling winds of doctrine. But he should turn in a friendly way toward those wandering in the mazes of error, and invitingly point them to the path leading to this tower of faith.

To accomplish this, there is needed a clear and attractive exposition of Scripture. George Miiller wished he could lose all memory of the Scriptures, so that, studying the classics down to Pliny and Seneca, and coming freshly to the Bible, he could observe how it would then appear to him.

Reverence for the sacred oracles, is connected in numerous minds with hallowed reminiscences of the past. There is many a one who has seen the gray head of his father bowed in family devotion, and upon whom his mother, when he was a child, was wont to lay her hand in prayer — to whom a choral of Bach, or a cathedral like that of Cologne, has given the impression that a religion which calls forth such creations, must contain some germ of truth. Let the preacher regard such reminiscences as sacred, and weave them into his dis- course.

The wish expressed by George Muller, a truly excellent man, whom a pious mother taught to lisp the name of his heavenly, at the same time with that of his earthly father, has been to many among the learned more or less unconsciously fulfilled. For such ones let the preacher expound the Scrip- tures, looking for hearts which, rejecting the divine, are open only to what is human. Thus, here and there, Herder has done, except that like Chateaubriand, he has exhibited the beauties of the Christian religion rather than its eternal truth. The same, yet in loftier flights, has been done by Sehleier- rnacher for those still farther estranged. No one of later times has been so much as he the preacher of religion to the learned among its despisers. That there is something more in Christianity than in the beautiful fables of antiquity — that it is a reality enduring beyond all time — for the knowledge of this truth, many are indebted to Sclileiermacher, who after- ward obtained a deeper experience.

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From Sehleiermaeher, the preacher among the educated can learn much. For the work of the ministry the most lil- eral culture is essential, as well as the nicest discernment. At a time, when for many, Shakespeare is higher authority than Paul — when a single distich of Goethe has more weight than the whole Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians ; at such a time if a preacher would have influence over his congrega- tion, he should not be unacquainted with their authorities. If anywhere, certainly here may the words of the Apostle be applied : “ All things are yours.”

An English divine was found one Saturday studying Gib- bon. On being questioned concerning this, he replied: “If I belong to Christ, Gibbon is surely mine, and a harvest-field that bears fruit for my master.”

On this point the preacher of our times is met by that mode of thinking which can hardly make wide enough the separa- tion between common life and the pulpit. For this reason, preaching appears to educated minds, pedantic, formal, mummy-like. “Even the word Russia has been used in the pulpit,” complains a sensitive reviewer.

In opposition to such purists, one might be tempted to ex- claim with Harms : —

“ Gthly. Let the preacher speak negligently and incor- rectly.” *

I do not, however, here allude merely to the approximation of the language of the pulpit to that of common life, though in this respect, too, I am of the opinion of Harms, but also of the doctrine of the pulpit, the two being connected. If we would win back our educated men and bring them under the influence of the pulpit we must not avoid there, any more than in every-day conversation, a reference to those scenes among which life is spent. If the homilists complain of and condemn us, Paul, who in Athens quoted Aratus in his dis- course, and among the Cretans, Epitnenides, will be our protection. One of the advantages thereby gained is an increase of confidence in the preacher. He no longer appears to us a man of the sacred caste, who speaks from the schools, but with us, he has experienced the trials of a difficult and * Treatise on Speaking with Tongues, p. 824

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troublous time. It is not the preacher , but the man, who speaks to us.

In order to make the understanding of Scripture more easy and attractive for this class — instead of preaching upon single texts, the homily, and still more, the connected exposition of the sacred hoolcs is desirable. Sermons from individual, isolated texts, have contributed not a little to strengthen the opinion that the Bible is only the magical background, of whose ancient religious gloom the preacher makes use to heighten the effect without ever daring approach it.

And, indeed, would not many a preacher feel himself under constraint if, instead of the single text to which he appends his remarks, it were required of him to present fully and clearly all he knows and believes concerning an extended portion of Scripture. This method of sermonizing, however, would tend to establish a more personal relation between the preacher and his audience. The more particular the exposi- tion, the more will his dependence upon the Bible be manifest, and the more will disappear those miserable common-places and that vague, essay-like style which now make many ser- mons so tedious.

Let it also be considered what a very great want of knowl- edge of the Bible there is in the present generation of hearers. Apart from that abundance, nay, that superabundance of catechetical and biblical instruction which we find in the schools of former centuries, how must the mere habit of church-going have extended the knowledge of the Bible!

With this was also connected a far greater use of church history, and a fuller comprehension of the various old ecclesi- astical forms which yet exist, but upon which the educated modern looks with smiles of wonder, just as the listener in the English Parliament, in the midst of a crowd among whom is seen nothing but what is new, looks upon the long peruke of the speaker.

With what increased interest will his hearers attend, when the preacher is prepared to make them acquainted with the origin of the present mode of divine worship, to inform them what relation the sermon bears to the edification, and to explain the object of the blessing and the benedic-

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tion, to speak of the right kind of church order and church discipline !

One of the most pressing necessities of the times is to prove that divine service does not consist in the sermon alone. So long as the Protestant, satisfied with his sermon, undervalues the singing and prayer, as, on the other hand, the Catholic, satisfied with his mass, undervalues the sermon, so long public worship cannot again flourish among us. But the preacher must endeavor, so far as possible, to conform the devotional parts of divine service to the wants of a cultivated taste. Oh, how have the beautiful words, church and congregation, lost their significance among us Protestants ! Let us learn once more to comprehend their import — then shall we again feel their power.

So much as to what should be said. Let us now consider the manner of saying it. On this point, Harms has expressed himself so admirably in his “ Treatise on Speaking with Tongues,” that I earnestly wish his words might find a loud echo in the hearts of all young preachers. “ The source of right preaching,” says he, “ is the Spirit— the Holy Spirit, and he who preaches by His assistance preaches in the way I mean — preaches, as I call it, with tongues.”

That our sermons are made , that they do not grow out of the fulness of the heart in the presence of God, is the chief reason why they do not hit the mark, why they do not new create. Says Pindar, the Hemean poet, “He who would speak, must first breathe.”

But not merely must the production of the sermon be in- spired by the Holy Spirit — its delivery should be so likewise. It is difficult to express the vast difference between the effect of a sermon delivered from memory, excellent as it may be in other respects, and that of one born for the second time in a more living inspiration. Did we Germans, in other religious services besides that of the sanctuary, know more of that power which the Word, directly inspired by the Spirit, exer- cises upon the hearer, above the word delivered from memory; we should be still less satisfied with the presentation of a life- less preparation.

The sermon must be a creation of the preacher in his study

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and a re-creation in his pulpit ; and when he descends, he should feel a mother's joy — the joy of one who, under God’s blessing, has borne a child. Only when the sermon is thus a double creation of the preacher, will it become a reality in his hearers. The discourses he has heard are way-marks in the life of a hearer, by which he determines how far and in what di- rection he has travelled.

It were much to be desired that more preachers were able to dispense with a full writing out and committing to memory; yet, it is not always necessary to discard this formal prepara- tion. If the sermon has been born by the Spirit in the study, why should it not, under the breathing of the Spirit, live again in the pulpit? We should, however, preserve so much of our freedom that when we stand in the presence of the devout congregation, borne up by the collected feelings of the assem- bly, we may not reject what we receive anew from the Lord, but with free power of production, incorporate it with what we have already prepared. Mere extemporizing gen- erally brings no salvation with it, and in our days, least of all to the educated. Even should our whole life and the entire range of our studies bear fruit for the text which we explain to the congregation, yet who can venture to trust so entirely to the spur of the moment as to expect that these resources will always be at his command ?

The sermon thus inspired by the Spirit speaks to the whole man ; it contains, first of all, a substantial doctrine, with the thoughts and conclusions suggested by it. Upon this point I cannot agree with the man in Kiel, who speaks with tongues, expressing himself slightingly of doctrine and the commu- nication of knowledge from the pulpit. When the Holy Spirit once takes up his abode in the heart of a hearer, every accession of knowledge of the truth and every new application of it to the life will be an inward quickening power.

Well does Harms say of the instruction connected with con- firmation— “ if it only were what it should be ! ” If, indeed, it were this, would it not always be the principles of the doc- triue of Christ — the foundation upon which perfection should be built ? In our time especially, when all hands are stretched out toward the tree of knowledge ; when, even in the middle

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classes, intelligence is more and more diffused, and the truth needs an attractive mediation — at such a time the continued study of the Scriptures, of theology, of literature, is indis- pensable in order to teach the principles of Christianity in a thorough manner and to assist the spring of thought to a new outflow. Yet these principles should always be clothed with illustrations and quickened by feeling.

On this point we must explain ourselves farther, as what we demand might appear to contradict that which gives primarily to all Christian development its highest rank, a holy sim- plicity. We have here to do with those in whose eyes perfect intelligibleness and popularity are the highest predicates of a sermon. This may seem a singular demand when the question is proposed how far Scripture satisfactorily meets it. Does then, the predicate of perfect intelligibleness belong, above many other books, to the Gospels of John and the Epistles of Paul ?

We are now told by quite a numerous class, that the range of subjects in the New Testament from which a preacher is allowed to select is very limited. The mysteries are stricken from the Word of God, and the caput mortuum of the so-called simple religion of Jesus, is delivered over to the preacher for him to hammer out as thin as possible.

“ I should like,” said one of the dictators, when Christianity was about to be introduced anew into France — I should like a simple religion, with only a couple of dogmas.” The atmosphere where there are no objects is clear, indeed, but at the same time empty and cold. With that illumination wh'ch assumes to itself the name of simplicity, we have nothing to do. But in respect to that which the counsel of God has re- vealed for the salvation of men, the preacher must be silent in nothing. Nor must he speak otherwise of divine things than God himself has spoken of them. If, however, we are careful to introduce Scripture correctly iuto our sermons, we may be permitted at the same time to drape them with imagination and feeling.

They are strangely mistaken who think that the people prefer from the pulpit the language and style they are accus- tomed to use in their hours of labor. When they go to church

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they put on their Sunday dress; therefore it pleases them that the sermon which they hear should be clad in festal garments, only let the preacher not confound the festal garment with what the Scriptures call high sounding words, where the thirsty hearer is forced to exclaim with Augustine when he was in error : “ Sed quid ad meam sitim pretiosorum poetdorum decentissimus ministratur.'1'1

We do not commend him who walks on stilts. When the tongue goes upon stilts, reason spreads hut half her sails. What Denham says of the Thames is applicable to the stream of words : —

“ Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull ;

Strong without rage, without o’erflowing, full.”

We ask only for the simplicity of Scripture language ; —for the illustrative, the sententious, the enigmatic, which more or less pervade all the hooks of the Old and New Testaments. This is the language of which it may be said, as a father of the church says of Scripture in general : “ It is a stream in which an elephant can swim and a lamb not be drowned.” It is this language which is attractive to the educated, — this which belongs to the beauties of the Gospel.

Is the sermon a living reality of the preacher in the pulpit? and has it been a living reality in his study ? Then it will not be likely to want imagination and feeling. And if the fulL tide of words, as in a confidential, heart-to-heart intercourse with the hearer, breaks suddenly into the ordinary language of life, it will take so much the deeper hold.

It is not enough that one says the truth ; it is also of essen- tial importance how he says it. Can it be the perspicuity of the argument merely which obtains the victory in the English Parliament? The two political parties that oppose each other have, indeed, their clubs where their votes are prepared, yet the power and the gift of eloquence have now, as in the time of Demosthenes, their inalienable rights. “ The secret of eloquence,” says Pope, “ is the right word in the right place.”

Let no one think that it is only through the artistical ar- rangement of its sentences, as in battle array, that the ruling

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mind gains the victory. Fox, the greatest of modern orators, conquered by means of feeling , — to whose impetuous torrent it was willingly forgiven that all the loaves did not form wav- ing lines. And if there, where the worldly interests of a com- mercial people cause the calculating understanding to spread all its sails, — if there the force of eloquence and the power of feeling obtain such conquests, how much greater will be the victory upon an arena where the orator has, in the hearts of his hearers, the Holy Spirit for an ally.

To all this, one thing more has to be added. The sermon should grow out of the circumstances of the flock. There are sermons which have their origin without the flock, and ser- mons which spring up within it. The first are those which the preacher forms in accordance with the common maxims of homiletics, and also with the idea of a Christian sermon of ecclesiastical times and seasons. Thus he will continue to do so long as no living reciprocity of relation exists between him- self and his people.

It is otherwise when the Sabbath sermon is the echo of ex- periences which his visitings through the parish during the week have enabled him to gather. The more the sermon is the result of this, the more individual, the more local, the more pertinent will it be. As it has its origin in the life of the flock, it will also serve to increase still more that life. The first consideration I have named should not be excluded from the sermon, but it should embrace this second, or be connected with it. Then will preaching without the pulpit furnish the true enlivening material for preaching in the pulpit.

But here rises up again that grim spectre of the general rules of pulpit style and pulpit decorum, which frightens back every particular application springing up in the mind of the pastor. If, however, the preacher only bears the souls of his flock upon his heart, — if he sorrows and rejoices with them, he is in a condition to exclaim with Paul, “ Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak ? Who is offended and I burn not?” Then the monotonous, essay-like tones, soaring far above the heads and hearts of the people, will disappear ; the sermon will cease to be a formal

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preparation, and will become the voice of nature, an audible sigh of the warm, throbbing heart.

And oh ! if, finally, all other gifts which we have here con- sidered fail, let the sermon only be natural ; let it be a fresh witness drawn from the life of the flock, and it will not be in vain. And for this, it is astonishing how little is necessary. For example, on certain festive occasions, to awaken emotion, let a mere faithful, unsupported word of truth be uttered ; let language be given to those feelings which the hearer has already brought with him. But when, instead of this, you present the formal preparation of the study — the essay, spun out in long-drawn, honeyed accents, like an old-fashioned beauty wrapped in a hundred envelopes, with her fan in her hand, — then, instead of a holy flame enkindled in the breast which needed only a few sparks, a frost}7 lethargy ■will chill the whole assembly. O ye full-souled men ! Chrysostom and Augustine, Heinrich Muller and Harms, would that your spirit of life might breathe in our sermons !

If now, after this full utterance of the heart, I come to my own sermons, I remark, in the first place, that they are pre- pared according to the circumstances of the people before whom I preach ; and, secondly, that they are prepared for an audience from the higher classes. But it has given me great pleasure that under this very preaching, if the sermons are not merely elaborately wrought as a logical or rhetorical piece of art, other classes need not go away empty. If, however, they do go away unprofited, I then conclude that however good the sermons may be as sermons , either they contain not the Gospel, or it has not been evangelically set forth.

I acknowledge, further, that I have by no means satisfac- torily met the requisitions here exhibited ; I confess that a certain timidity has withheld me, and still withholds me, from proceeding in respect to the whole structure as I might do, and as, under many circumstances, I should consider it more profitable to do. The unconstrained homily, as Chrysostom used it, is the form most suited to my wants as a preacher, and in which, as I think, I could also obtain the best fruits, though I would by no means reject other forms.

In this prefatory discourse, however, I have conformed

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myself to the custom which in our days proscribes this kind of homily ; yet I go on in the usual course with constraint. I have a special aversion to the violence done to the connection of Scripture in the common treatment of a text. Yet if we take the parts logically derived from its fundamental idea, and then attach to this logical division, in a neat, beautiful, and even rhythmical fashion, the separate parts of the text, such violence will often hardly be avoided. How frequently will it be with the preacher who is frittering away his powers on this artificial structure of the sermon, as with the poet whose rhymes are not at hand ; the spirit’s bloom is withering. Hence Jean Paul wrote poetry in prose.

In many other respects, also, I have not found it best to make use of the freedom which in the preceding remarks is required for the sermon, and in which I should, under other circumstances, have indulged myself. Since my duties as a preacher are only the smallest part of my calling, I have gen- erally been unable to bestow that labor upon my sermons which he is able to give them whose duties find their central point in his weekly sermon. All this may serve as an apology for the imperfections which exist in them.

In one point only, as I think, have I met the expressed requisitions. They are not formal preparations which I lay before my people, but spontaneous oidgushings , created in the study and born anew in the pulpit. Nor have they had their origin withoid the flock, but within it. The experiences of the preceding week among the members of the congregation have almost always been the birthplace of the leading idea of the sermon.

This circumstance may be my explanation, and will justify me if the same materials are used more than once. The gen- eral rule that there should not be a repetition either in the subject-matter or in the use of set phrases should be applied to sermons with discretion. In the language of books, repetition should be avoided ; but in the language <5f life, the pulsation of love is often revealed by it. “ To write the same things to yon, to me, indeed, is not grievous ; but for you it is safe.”

Only let these repetitions not be presentations of different copies of one and the same idea, but continually new produc-

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tions occasioned by new experiences ; — only let them not be artificial flowers which upon every new festive occasion are brought down again out of their glass-case for exhibition, but repetitions like those of nature, which brings forth anew every spring the same leaves and flowers.

God has given me many proofs that these discourses, when they were spoken, were not spoken to the wind. May he now also accompany the written word with the blessing which he has promised.

Art. II. — Heathen Views on the Golden Age, etc., compared with the Bible.

The question as to the primeval state of man has assumed im- mense importance in our days. Mr. Darwin recognizes, indeed, the divine hand in the primitive creation, but sees no necessity of a divine agency in the subsequent development of the countless kinds of plants and animals from the four or five original forms or types ; nor were these subsequent develop- ments potentially inclosed in the original types, as the oak- tree in the acorn, waiting only for the action of certain agen- cies, as heat, light, moisture, etc., in order to develop from potentiality into reality. All this took place by mere “ natural selection.” Whether man is also a development from the same source and by the same cause, or not, Mr. Darwin does not say ; but many of his followers have thrown off the re- serve of their master, denying an original creation altogether, and including man in the same process of development, while others give us to understand, that it is merely by grace that they do not yet hold these same positions, in order to let the Bible and the faith in it live a few years or decades longer. Many learned questions about the origin of life by a generatio cequivoca, or whether life is eternal, about the origin of human speech, etc., which the Bible answers as positively as it does rationally, are discussed, as if there were no such thing as the

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Bible in existence, or as if it were as mute about these things, as the men of the “ bow-wow ” theory were for an unknown length of time, or as if its authority had been overthrown long ago, or as if its plain words had a meaning entirely different from what they seem to bear. Instead of listening but distantly to the Bible, infidels and Bible-believers start and advocate the ‘‘ding-dong” and “bow-wow” theories, charging their opponents with palpable absurdity, and they evidently suc- ceed remarkably well in making good their charges.

The Bible tells us as a simple fact, not only that God crea- ted man, but that man proceeded out of the hands of his Creator, not as an infant, not as a child-man, but as a man in soul and body, who understood the words of the Creator ad- dressed to him, and who could express his own ideas and con- ceptions in intelligible language before his Creator. This man, the Bible further tells us, sinned, deteriorating his whole be- ing, soul and body, thereby and impeding his progress or improvement. Now if all men are descendants of the first pair of men, as the Bible also affirms, and if the things just stated are true, it is more than probable, that some knowledge of this primeval state of man, in more or less altered forms, was transmitted from parents to their children, and some traces of it must be found among all nations. Whether this a priori reasoning is justified by facts, is the object of these pages to examine.

That these traces or traditions actually exist, is well known to and admitted by all ; but we are at once told that these traditions, etc., are the productions of idle brains or allegories devoid of all force, and that they found their way into differ- ent books of the Bible, according to the different stand-points of their writers. Thus is ascribed to rabbinical fables what Paul says of the groanings “of the whole creation to a Stoic origin what Peter teaches about the destruction of the world by fire; what he says about a new heaven and a new earth is represented as nothing else than a dream of the nations about the return of the golden age. But if it should be found that the Bible stories are older, because simpler and purer than all these traditions, and that these traditions were almost univer- sal, the sincere inquirer after truth will know that the ration-

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alistic solution does not solve the problem, and that this universality can only be accounted for on the supposition that the Bible is literally true.

"VVhat the Bible says about paradise, we find echoed and re- echoed in the tradition of classical antiquity about the golden age. What the poets say about it, they want us to understand by no means allegorically or spiritually, but literally. That the body is the prison-house of the soul, as a later philosophy taught, is an idea altogether unknown to the primitive religi- ous consciousness. In the next place, the poets expressly state, that in that age not only moral and spiritual, but also physical evil was altogether non-existent. They represent the latter as a consequence of the former. Physical evil of every forth follows sin. The first passage to which we call attention, is Hesiod’s vEpya nal 106-120, which is indis-

putably a very old composition, even if Hesiod should not be its author. Here we read : —

“ First of all, the immortals holding the mansions of Olympus made a golden race of speaking men. And as gods they were wont to live, with a life free from care, apart from and without trouble and labor : nor was wretched old age at all impending, but ever the same in hands and feet, did they delight themselves in festivals out of the reach of all ills: and they died, as if over- come by sleep; all blessings were theirs. Of its own will the fruitful field would bear them fruit, much and ample ; and they gladly used to reap the labors of their hands in quietness along with many good things, being rich in flocks, and dear to the blessed gods.”

It is worthy of note, that death existed even in this happy state, contrary to the Bible. But death was only a falling asleep, and a passage into a still happier state of existence, as v. 121 says : “ By the behests of mighty Jove they are demons, kindly haunting earth, guardians of mortal men.” 4

In the next place, it deserves attention, that in this simple description, not temporal happiness is the main point, but this, that “ men lived like gods, and were dear to the blessed gods.” Then this generation of men was not a race of savages, living in a wild state of nature, and happy, because unaffected by culture, “ but they gladly used to reap the labors of their hands with many good things.” Greatly modified, we find the same tradition in the works of the Latin poets, Yirgil and Ovid, who, though they make physical happiness the main

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1870.] Compared with the Bible.

point, still represent men as sinless and nature as free from all suffering and evil. Metain ., I., 89-93, reads : “ First, the golden age was created, which without any j udge, freely without (written) laws, kept faith and practised righteousness. Pun- ishment and fear were absent, .... they were safe with- out a revenger.”

The same tradition we meet with in the writings of many other writers, poets and philosophers, as Diod. Sic., I., 8 ; Lucret., V., 923 ; Plato, Polity 271c, 278c ; de leg., IV., 713c ; de repub., III., 415a.

Some philologists deny, indeed, that the tradition in this form was the popular view, maintaining that, according to the latter, the first men lived in a state of animal savageness drjpiGjdtig ty~]v ; in the pseudo-Homeric hymn in honor of He- phaistos we read (vs. 3 and 4) : “ He taught men on earth glorious works — before they used to live in caves upon moun- tains, like beasts.” From this savage state man is delivered by the gods who teach him agriculture, handicraft, and arts. Athene, ITephaistos, Prometheus, Demeter, are the merciful gods who rescue man. Afterward the rationalistic notion prevailed, that man was his own deliverer, stimulated by want and pleasure ; necessity, and still later, chance con- tributed also its share.

How, if we were ready to grant, for argument’s sake, that this view had been the popular one (a position, however, that is by no means proved), this much at least is certain, that it is not the older. By the same process, by which nominal Christians have exchanged the Bible teachings for rationalism or any thing else, the older and nobler view gave Avay to rationalistic corruption — at first it is the gods, then it is man himself, led by want, pleasure , necessity, or chance, that rescued the race. But the two views are, after all, not neces- sarily irreconcilable. In the myths of the golden age we have reflected the universal remembrance of the state in paradise, while we see in the tradition, that men were deliv- ered from a state of original savageness by the gods or by men, the special views of the Hellenistic and Pelasgian tribes, who remembered that they had been delivered from a state of savageness and misery through influences coming from the VOL. xlii. — no. m. 24

3Gi Heathen Views on the Golden Age, etc., [July,

East, through immigrants, such as Cadmus, Pelops, Cecrops, etc., who were afterward deified through gratitude.

That the legend of the golden age was the oldest remem- brance, appears almost conclusively also from the Saturnalia, the Mysteria, and other kindred festivals. The nature of the Saturnalia is well known. They were a beautiful and noble remembrance of that golden age of freedom, when there were neither masters nor servants, when all men were equal and happy. They pointed backward, and, at the same time, pro- phetically forward, like the Year of Jubilee, with its prescribed manumissions, which pointed, in a brighter light than the festival in honor of Hercules and the Saturnalia, likewise backward to paradise and forward to the times of Him who was to set all the imprisoned free. These heathen festivals, however they may have been corrupted in the course of time, prove conclusively both the reality of the times of paradise, and that the heathen world had a distinct recollection of them, popular festivals being never the productions of a dream or of mere fancy. The same is the case with the lamentations about Linos, Mameros in Egypt, Adonis in Phenice and Cyprus, about Hylas in Mysia, Narkissos by the citi- zens of Thesbim on the Helicon, and with the mourning of Demeter for her daughter. The import of all these myths is this : sons of God and their favorites fall victims of death and destruction. The popular celebration of these myths con- sisted for the most part in this : that, as in the case of Adonis, who even in Hades still loved by Persephone is permitted every spring to return to the light of the sun in order to enjoy the company of Aphrodite, his death was celebrated with dirges, but his return from Hades with songs of joy.

Lasaulx, in his programme, “ The Lamentation about Linos,” has conclusively shown how probable it is that all these legends and lamentations were but the echo of the sorrow of mankind for the fall of the progenitor of the race, and that by Linos and others of the same class, ultimately no one else than Adam must be understood. Moreover, — and this is the main point, — these lamentations and their celebrations were com- plaints of nature, and referred to the great catastrophes in na- ture,— spring, summer, fall, and winter, — in which changes of

1870.] Compared with the Bible. 365

nature man