teacher of all means of support, while the Pagan magistrates and public teachers were basking in the beams of imperial favour. This partial policy operated also as a powerful bribe to induce those Christians, whose virtue was not sufficiently strong to resist the temptation, to apostatize from the faith for the sake of temporal emoluments. And while many stood firm amidst these alluring inducements, nobly contemning the policy of their emperor, and refusing to pay homage to the idol gods which he adored, others were taken in the deceitful coils of the tempter, wounded their own consciences, and brought a reproach upon the Christian name. But the end of these vexations was near at hand. Julian was anxious to signalize himself in war. Constantius had made war upon the Persian king, but had been defeated in his purpose of making an inroad into his territories. The campaign had terminated, in fact, ingloriously for the Roman emperor. Julian resolved to wipe off the dishonour inflicted on the arms of his countrymen. Accordingly, he marched a large army through Assyria, enduring almost incredible hardships, besieging and taking several strong cities on his route, until he at length arrived at the Persian capital. The Persians were alarmed, and though they fought with desperate valour, they were forced to retreat before the invincible legionaries of Rome, led on as they were by Julian, one of the most consummate generals of antiquity. By some strange infatuation, just as he was, apparently, on the point of taking the city, he sounded a retreat, and prepared to return to his own dominions. This determination was considered by some the result of a prudent foresight, drawn from a knowledge of existing circumstances; by others, as an indication of Divine vengeance, to precipitate the downfall of a man that had defied its authority, and by cunning and deceit had striven to undermine God's truth and annihilate his Church. Whatever opinion may be formed as to the causes of this retrograde movement, it was certainly attended with the most disastrous results to Julian and the troops under his command. The Persians followed the retreating Romans, attacking them at every favourable opportunity; and though repeatedly repulsed with firmness, at length, while Julian was fighting at the head of his army, a javelin, thrown by a Persian soldier, after grazing the skin of his arm, transpierced his ribs, and penetrated the inferior part of his liver. He attempted to draw the deadly weapon from his side; but instead of obeying the impulse of his arm, it cut his fingers, and he fell senseless to the earth. On recovering from his swoon, the first words he uttered displayed the martial spirit by which he was actuated. He called for his horse, and was eager to

rush into the battle. His strength failed him; and the surgeons who examined the wound pronounced it fatal, and he was compelled to resign himself to death.

The reports that he exclaimed, "O thou Galilean! thou hast conquered at last!" are not well authenticated. On the contrary, it appears that he discoursed with calmness upon death, and resigned up his soul without fear or regret. The following is taken from Gibbon's account of the last moments of Julian :

"Friends and Fellow-Soldiers!-The seasonable period of my departure has now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety; and I accept as a favour of the gods, the mortal stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character which has hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of the divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate. Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have considered the happiness of the people as the end of government. Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the eternal Being who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an honourable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit or to decline the stroke of fate. Thus much I have attempted to say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the government of a virtuous sovereign.' After this discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he distributed, by a military testament, the remains of his private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that Anatolius was killed, and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency, the loss of his friend. At the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators, and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who in a few moments would be united with heaven and with the stars. The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and as soon as he had drunk it, expired without pain, about the hour of midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the thirty-second year of his

age, after a reign of one year and about eight months from the death of Constantius. In his last moments he displayed, perhaps, with some ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his life."

This speech, whether actually uttered as recorded, or, as is most likely, prepared for the nonce by his biographer Libanius, evinces the truth of what has been before stated, namely, that Julian borrowed from Christianity some of his sublimest conceptions respecting the divine Being, the immortality and future happiness of the soul, while he displayed all the pride of the Pharisee in his boastful professions of innocence and virtue.

In his death the Church was delivered from one of its deadliest foes, while Paganism lost its ablest protector. His short, but brilliant career, affords another striking evidence of the inefficiency of human effort to resist public sentiment, urged on by strong religious belief and feeling. When Julian came to the throne, Christianity had taken a firm hold of the public mind; and in many of the chief cities it had supplanted Paganism. The priests and the sophists were fast sinking into insignificance; and the mummeries of Pagan worship were considered, by men of rank and culture, as puerilities unworthy of belief or veneration. This expiring superstition Julian attempted to reanimate. And though by his subtilty, and his partiality, in all his administration, to the old system of religion, he gave a check to Christianity, he could not reinstate Paganism in the hearts of his subjects, nor make its gods and worship acceptable in their sight. Hence, on his demise, his successor, Jovian, proclaiming himself a Christian, found it easy to persuade the people to follow his example, to rebuild the ruined churches, and to forsake the temples of heathenism. Christianity gradually revived under the reign of Jovian and his successors, Valens and Valentinian, though Paganism still struggled for existence, until Theodosius assumed the imperial purple in 379, when he proceeded to establish it by law, and to enforce his statutes in its favour, by exacting obedience to its requisitions, and by inflicting severe penalties upon the adherents of Paganism. Thus was the work of Julian rendered of no lasting effect, and all his malicious designs against Christianity were defeated.

From the foregoing facts Julian appears to have been possessed of a strange compound of good and bad qualities; mingling the gravity of the philosopher, the acuteness of the metaphysician, the artfulness of the hypocrite, the courage of the warrior, with the superstition of the devotee, the chastity of the ascetic, and the temperance of the most abstemious of men. His life gave proof of the highest intellect and the strongest physical powers. While he gave himself up to the superstitious reveries of Paganism, bewildered his understanding

and bewitched his imagination with the belief and study of magic, and displayed the zeal of the most zealous in the worship of the gods of heathenism, he applied his mind with equal assiduity to science, delighted in the conversation of the philosophers of his age, and would mingle with the orators on the forum, or in the debates in the senate-chamber. At a moment's warning he could throw off the cloak of the philosopher, seize the sword and the helmet, and enter the field of battle with all the ardour of an Alexander, and lead his troops with the intrepidity of a hero. He affected the theologian. Here he failed. He most evidently viewed Christianity through a false medium. Instead of considering it as planting a Church, by its own internal energies, in the understanding and hearts of men, he seemed to think that Christianity owed its origin to an artful and ambitious priesthood. This erroneous view was derived from the mutilated form in which it was presented, through the medium of a corrupted church, and the misconduct of its professors and more public defenders. Hence it is but reasonable to suppose that his hatred of Christianity originated, in part at least, from the early bias he contracted against it, from beholding this inconsistency between its precepts and the practice of its professors.

How many have been thus deluded! Not duly considering that, as Burke has observed, "hypocrisy is a homage that vice pays to virtue," they hastily and erroneously conclude that these apparent inconsistencies destroy the reality of true religion. Unhappy Julian! Could he have seen Christianity in the simplicity and purity with which it came from its divine Founder, instead of beholding it as it was exemplified in his imperial uncle, or in the courtly bishops who surrounded the throne, and who, in their rival contentions, more resembled wolves in sheep's clothing than the lambs of Christ's flock, his fate might have been far different, though he could not have been a sincere Christian without sacrificing his corrupt passions upon the altar of faith, and surrendering his heart without reserve to God.

ART. IV. JAMES MILNOR.

A Memoir of the Life of James Milnor, D. D., late Rector of Saint George's Church, New-York. By Rev. JOHN S. STONE, D. D. 8vo., pp. 646. New-York: American Tract Society. 1848.

RATHER a heavy book; cumbered with unnecessary details, and both sides of an epistolary correspondence, most of which is of little general interest. About one-fourth of it is occupied with complimentary letters to and from the subject of the memoir, written and received during a visit of a few months to England, and minute details of the civilities paid him by the magnates of the father-land, invitations to dinner, breakfast, and tea parties. Interesting, doubtless, to the good man's family during his absence,-of very little consequence to the world. He dined too, occasionally, with persons of inferior rank; once or twice, if not oftener, with Methodists; as, for instance, at a Mr. Haslope's; of which entertainment he says, in a journal intended only for his family, but which Dr. Stone spreads out for the world: "The arrangements of the house and table, and the dress of the females of the family, are somewhat beyond the style common among the members of the Methodist Society in America." He adds, however, that "Mr. Haslope bears an excellent religious character;" and, whether to account for the excellence of that character, or for the style of the dress of his wife and daughters, he informs us that they "attend in part the Established Church, having accommodations in the parish church of Islington." Would the reader like to know why the Doctor did not accept an invitation to breakfast on Friday, April 30th, 1830, with Mr. Macaulay? He shall have the information. He was invited to breakfast elsewhere at the same hour. So says his biographer.

Notwithstanding the author's lack of discrimination, he has made a readable book. It is beautifully printed, on fine paper, and, estimated by its bulk, quite cheap withal. And why should it not be cheap? It is published by a Society which makes large drafts on the community,-a benevolent institution, known as the American Tract Society; American, par excellence, all other associations of a kindred character, although located within the same boundaries, and sustained by members of the same commonwealth, being, by implication, not American. And this is one of their publications; a tract of six hundred and forty-six large octavo pages: an illustration of "the progressive principle of language;" or rather, perhaps, a return to first principles;-tract being, literally, some