ting men's actions, so safe as by their thoughts; for action is one appointed mode of expressing thought. And if it be true, that you can reason from actions to thoughts with more safety than from thoughts to actions, this only shows that the statesman needs a subtler mental philosophy, in so far as he must consider, not merely the intricacies of thought, but the "specific difference" (if we may so call it) between thought and action.

Away, then, with your blustering patriotism, and titled nobility! Away, even, with your elegant and persuasive oratory, with all its richness, and fullness, and earnestness of illustration! Its soul-stirring appeals may charm and render enthusiastic the assembled people; an admiring populace may run to do them homage, and a grateful posterity be dazzled by the lustre of their fame. But better be without them, and the power which they confer, than to be without that sound philosophy of mind, which is so essential to the safest and most intelligent administration of national affairs.

ANCIENT AND MODERN REPUBLICS.

BY EDWARD GRIFFIN PARKER, BOSTON, MASS.

WHEN We scrutinize the universe, we observe that all things have their proper modes of action, and that all, with the exception of man, spontaneously obeying these rules, easily and happily attain the development of their being. The little nut decays, germinates, sprouts, and spreads great and graceful branches in the sky, naturally; and the globes above us trace their mazy orbs, without discipline, in harmonious measure. Man alone seems prone to oppose the laws of his being and the conditions of his weal. To resist the ruinous effects of this

tendency, political government has been instituted. That species of it termed Republican now attracts attention, and the object of this essay will be to contrast ancient and modern Republican governments in the main principles on which their strength depends, and in their democracy itself.

Rome and Greece on the one hand, and America on the other, will be the representatives of each.

The Roman united all the attributes of sovereignty, people and laws, in an Ideal, which he recognized distinctly in the symbols of its existence, and embraced in one comprehensive term-The State. This he invested with an awful and holy character. Its origin was shrouded in the mysterious and impressive gloom of a high and mythic antiquity, and it was presumed to be ever under the protection of the gods, who were constantly propitiated by the offerings of devotion. On its high altar smoked the quenchless fire, a certain token that the Divine Afflatus had never deserted it. In its secure archives were the incomparable Revelations of Sibylline Inspiration. In its service ministered the hoary and holy men who, full of the curious lore of Etru

ria, practiced a prescient craft, and seemed to stand between the heavens and the earth. Its laws-that is the decrees of the people— the moment they were legally adopted, became a component of this sacred State. Its high offices were the shadows of Jove's majesty, and the longer a law endured the more it was hallowed, for they fancied they heard the voice of Heaven speaking in the records of the Fathers. The sanctity attaching to the law, however, withdrew attention from its object. For it the citizen lived, not it for him; and thus it too often happened that the Comitia inquired if the proposed measure was demanded by the State, and approved by the Haruspices, rather than examined its bearing upon the fortune of each citizen. Thrice in one century did a Decius, in the unsullied apparel of the victim, and with unearthly imprecations, devote himself, in obedience to an unnatural sentiment. Thus, even under the Empire, the shadow of the old Idea remains, and the rescripts of the Emperor are called "The Sacred Constitutions."

In the Grecian States of Athens and Sparta, a similar veneration for the State, as partaking of a higher than human nature, and not to be approached profanely, is apparent. There seems to have been, however, a natural spring of religious feeling in the breast of his neighbor across the Ionian Gulf, to which the Greek was comparatively a stranger; and we think his reverence for the State was nourished by the paramount influence of great men. The principle of the slavery of the individual to the State was virtually inculcated by Solon, and clearly by Lycurgus; and when Demosthenes, in full court, utters his opinion, that the citizen is born not only for his own happiness and that of his relatives, but for the State, he only echoes the sentiment of Simonides in his renowned Epitaph upon the Spartan Dead, which bids men "Tell it at Lacedæmon, We lie here," not because we deem it noble for Liberty, but " in obedience to her Laws."

But while the Roman State drew new authority from new prodigies, while every flash through the dim religious light of the Capitoline was an injunction to the people, the self-recruiting power of the Grecian was more limited; for, as they receded from their original Lawgivers, their principles would grow less effectual, and this decay of opinion was chiefly counteracted by the influence of great and wise men among them, who, at various times and in various ways, re-animated the drooping State spirit whose value they were sagacious enough to perceive. Systems thus constituted, however, could not endure the steady strain of ages, though they might survive the concussions of a few centuries. For more than four hundred years did the Roman defy the storms and the thunders of popular and personal rage, attaining during that period the genuine magnificence which has provoked the admiration of ages. But long before the close of that period, a political infidelity had gradually crept in, which was silently undermining the hollow buttresses of the State.

Amid the affluence and dignity which rolled in upon him after the close of the Samnite wars and the discomfiture of Pyrrhus,-a dignity and honor accorded no less by the expiring umpirage of Greece

than by the consideration of the rising Courts of the Ptolemies,with the hills of his mighty city all capped with Temple trophies, and his Forum filled with the deputations of dependants and supplicants,— the Roman spirit swelled and struggled to burst all bonds and be a god unto itself and to the world. More than once did the Flamens hear with dismay of daring Generals who had crossed arms with the foe, and won victory in defiance of the omens. More than once a proud band of Patricians virtually denied the sole supremacy, in matters perhaps of trifling import in themselves, but all-important as regarding the principle. And after her own and her colonial ports were crowded with trireme prizes and the costly cargoes of Carthage and the East, Luxury and Sensuality joined in the attack. Then, immersed in voluptuousness, other influential houses slighted and neglected, rather than contemned, until the time came when, from the influx of foreign philosophy and letters, and the native intellectual growth, theoretical infidelity began to prevail. And when the most cultivated mind in Rome expresses his surprise that the soothsayers do not laugh in each other's faces,-then the imposing fabric falls.

In Greece, where the various hateful passions, which the critical observer distinguishes constantly burning under the showy exterior of Beauty and Heroism, were restrained from tearing out the vitals of the Body Politic, by their training to a blind homage to the State, the process of destruction would be analogous to that of Rome, and would attain its consummation whenever the race of great men should become extinct, or whenever the progress of ideas, or the haughtiness of power, or the depreciation of character, resulting from license and excess, should sap the authority of their opinions. All these circumstances conspired about the time when Rome's star was culminating, and the agonizing plea of Demosthenes is at once the testimony of their degradation and the crowning monument of their expiring glory. We say, then, of the Democracy of the Ancient, that to preserve any part of his own legislation, he limited that participation by a blind reverence for the Decretals of ancestors, the Declarations of auspices, and a superstitious regard for his own Law; and it resulted that besides being conservative to the last degree in one, he legislated in both the countries we have been considering, rather for the State than for himself.

In the forgotten folios of old writers there is a picturesque description of a famous battle between the Emperor Constantine and his rival Maxentius; for the chronicles tell how a cross, flaming on high, heralded the victory and converted the victor. However this may be, the event of that day gave the grand impetus to a Religion which, though of very humble origin, was destined to intermingle with all Political Economy, and to be conspicuous in the unwonted Fashion and new Strength of Republican Institutions.

Former Political Theories had endeavored to repress the cxpression of evil; but here was something which, when pressed into the service, struck at the origin and root itself. Instead of building a stout wall against the waves of Passion, it lulled the winds to render the waves

gentle. Henceforth the seat of the contest so often waged in the Forum and the Agora, between selfishness, lust and rage, on the one side, and a factitious awe with venerable names upon the other, was changed. The battle was not to be joined in public, amid the excitements of the crowd, but each man alone in his closet was to labor with the evil that was in him. The Holy Scriptures laid down general principles of self-government, in accordance with which the ends of life could be attained. These it enforced by appalling threats, while it recommended them by the proffer of ravishing rewards. These principles were such as daily experience affords testimony to affirm are calculated to produce happiness. Inculcating a higher and purer morality than had ever been aspired to, and a far more full and complete adherence to justice in reference to others, and finally embracing all in the extensive precept, that whatever, in the partial court which each one for himself set up, he judged the world should do to him, that he was to assume as the description of his deportment to his fellows, it would, in proportion to its adoption, relieve Government from the pressure of men's evil and violent passions. Thus, as its sphere widened, any system of Government which was resolved upon would have less to encounter.

Not very long ago a Statesman in the British House of Peers made use of the significant phrase, "The Schoolmaster is abroad." This simple statement was the recognition of another grand Principle which, advancing hand in hand with Christianity, tended to the same end,the connection and consolidation of Popular Institutions.

The influence of Modern Education in relation to Government is to contribute to give right Principles and right forms, and then to promote subordination to them. Embracing a political Experience of ages, as it were, in himself, an Experience crowded with varying Principles and varying Forms to which the same Principle has given rise; the Modern can trace their operation, mark the reasons of their decay; distinguish the elements of their prosperity, and comparing, selecting, and compounding, his work should rise massive with the solidity of every element of durability which time has in any way approved. A correct system, in unison with the interests of those on whom it acts, is sensible of a quickened vitality from every accession of popular Intelligence. Not only is the Law-making machine, if we may venture the expression, one which generally turns out sound articles, but the recipients set a due value on them. Interested and Factious Demagogues cannot delude the well-informed: though particular interests may sometimes seem infringed upon, reason will yet bear sway; and when, notwithstanding the general tenor, unhappy wrong is committed, the necessity of Government and the imperfections inseparable from it will receive a proper attention. Education coincides with Religion, too, in its harmonizing and softening quality, widening the sphere of being, and inspiring self-respect, while directly or indirectly it affords occupation to vast numbers of the very persons whose neglected activity might prove formidable. It also throws back new light upon

Religion, for usually as men become enlightened they admit the excellence of Christianity.

In estimating abstractly the efficiency of Religion and Education in affording stability to a Government, it is also to be remarked that it is not essential to its security that all its subjects shall be good and intelligent. Every established Government has an advantage over all that threatens it; for these antagonistic elements are rarely concentrated in one attack, and its own energies being always at command, they are encountered in detail. These influences, whose legitimate action we have pointed out, nominally exist in all their efficiency in America. A nation, however, may be distinguished by a rare elevation of moral purpose and a superior intellectual cultivation, yet if suddenly released from the restraints which ancient usage has rendered familiar, they will be disqualified from using their power and applying their knowledge. France, the allusion to whose Republicanism summons up sad visions, possessed intelligence and virtue enough to manage the royal gift, if she had received it gradually. But it came upon her at once, in all its terrible beauty. It appalled at first, then it intoxicated; and whether shrinking from the strange responsibility, or bewildered by the delirium of Freedom, she proved alike unworthy of the dower.

We shall not do right, then, to count the crosses towering above the cities of America, the little spires dotting lowland and upland, and the modest school-house belfries clanging their rustic summons through myriad village circles, but we are to observe her History if we would estimate aright the supports of her Polity.

On the sloping plain of Pevensey, in England, where "Battle Abbey" now stands, in commemoration of the day, a people accustomed to the unshackled license of Feudalism were many years ago reduced to the subjection of a vigorous Foreign rule. But the field of Hastings was only the most unfortunate in a series of efforts. Arbitrary demands on the part of the monarchs, and disputes between them and the children of the great chiefs who had coöperated in the invasion, constantly reinforced the resolute yeomanry of the malcontents, and the close of a little more than a century saw victors and vanquished arrayed in unbroken line against the Throne. MagnaCharta," its ratifications, and the more complete and accurate Declaration of Rights, are the autographs of the Progress. It was a succession of steps, and Religion and Education advanced with and prompted every movement. Then, in the wider latitude just gained, they exercised their Religion, applied and augmented their knowledge, and the result of each stand for more liberal concessions confirmed their propriety. Finally, to crown this arduous discipline, a portion of these people separated themselves by thousands of miles from the scene of their labors, and like the dwellers in the Wilderness, entered upon a continent whose climate and soil were so congenial to a high intellectual and moral development, that it seemed a promised land. Escaping from the clinging relics of Institutions as unfit for them now, as the nest of the eaglet bird for the Eagle, and from the mani