True American. [volume] (Steubenville [Ohio]) 1855-1861, 1855-01-18

the hope OF being sheltered by 1t from the
thunder of the Priests, by whom both he
and his brother poets were continually
threatened. They could not imagine po-
ct, without supposing him to hold inter-
course with some demon. We do not wish
to conceal the fact that Protestant coun-
tries have been parsimonious in bestowing
favors on men of genius and in encourag-
ing education. All communities may be
indeed too Indifferent, yet but few instan-
ces of equal cruelty can be found anywhere
as those referred to above. 1t was a long
time the boast, as it should have been the
shame of the Catholic church, that she did
not need the auXiliarios of literature and
science. 1t was no uncommon occurrence
for Bishops, Priests and Cardinals to be
unable to read. The Bible was sealed
book. Canons, decretals and indulgences
took the place of the Bible, and its simple
reading exposed thousands to torture; and
Atheism offers but few inducements or re-
ward for literary labor, and on these as
sumptions it would seem almost useless
and unmeaning devotion. One might, like
Gibbon, consecrate himself to the service
of letters, but the reward of his labors
would be to him whatever might be his
achievement, but an extension of the great
universe of vanity of which nothing would
seem so unmeaning and vain as himself
A good writer has well said: "Of all the
powers and faculties of the human mind,
the noblest is the one which God has Gre
ated for himself, and if that reverential Or
adorning faculty does not exist, or be by
suicidal hands extirpated, the world will
soon cease to fear the man who had no
God" "And thus while the Voltaires
and Rosseaus of atheist memory, are wax
ing old and vanishing from the armament
of letters, names of less renown, but more
religion, brighten toa greater lustre." So
true is it that no man can long keepa hold
of his fellow men, unless he himself first
has hold of God,
But if sincere and strenuous acknowl-
edgment of God be thus important, such a
natural faith in God as buoyed ancient
philosophy in its longest and most ethereal
flights, or "bul ged the Saxon muscle Of
Shakespeare in his mightiest Efforts" in.
comparably more prevalent is that intellec-
tual prowess which a scriptural faith pro-
duces. He is no unknown God whom the
believer in Jesus worships, and it is no Or
dinary inspiration which that God of light
and love supplies to his soul. Were it not
that the subject has been often advertcdto,
I would rejoice to enumeratc many geni-
uses which the gospel kindled, if it did not
create. That gospel all admit was Milton's
poetic might. "This was" in the language
of Milton, "the struggling energy which,
after years of deep musing and wrapt de-
votion, after years Of deep muttcring and
anxious omen, sent its pyramid of fame
into old England's dingy hemisphere, and
poured its molten wealth, its lava of gold
and gems, fetched deep from the classic
and from patriarchal times, adorn the rus
set steep of Puritan theology. This was
the fabled foot which struck from the sward
of Cowper's mild and silent life joyous
Castalia, fountain deep as Millions fire,
and like it tinctured with each learned and
sacred thing it touched when rising, but
soft and full as Siloah's fount, which flowed
fast by the oracle of God. And that gos-
pei was the torch which on the hills of
Renfrewshire fired young spirit, Pollock
himself both sacrifice and altar pile-till
Britain spied the light, and wondered at
the brief but brilliant beacon. But why
name the individual instances? What is
modern learning, and the march of intel
lcct, and the reading million but one great
of the gospels quickening pow
er Three hundred years ago the classics
were REVIVED; but three hundred years
ago the gospel was restored. Digging in
the Pompeii of the middle age, Lorenzo
and Leo found the lamps in which the old
classic fires had burned, but there was no
oil in the lamps, and they had long since
gone out For models of candalabria end
burners, there could not be better than
Livy, and Horace, and Plato, and Pindar;
but the faith which once filled them, the
old Pagan fervor, was long since extinct,
and the lamps were only fit for the shelves
of the antiquary. But it was then that in
the crypt of the convent, Luther and Zuin-
gle, and Melancthon observed q line of su-
pernatural light, and with lever and mat
took lifted the grave-stono, and found the
gospel which the Papists had buried
There it had famed a "light shining in a
dark place" through unsuspected ages, un-
quenchable in its iron immortality, the
long lost trump in the sepulchre. Jupiter