progress in moral philosophy, biblical criticism, criminal jurisprudence, and religious toleration, as well as physical science, (although in criminal jurisprudence the law-reforms of the English Commonwealth are said to have anticipated many of those of the later times of this century), and that the textbooks adopted at the beginning of that period would be inappropriate at the present time in the present state of knowledge and society.

Dr. Wm. Ames was a non-conformist of distinction, educated at Christ College, Cambridge, who went to Holland and was twelve years a professor in the University of Franeker in that country. We are not aware that his Cases of Conscience was a text-book in Yale College in the ordinary sense of the word. At the meeting in 1701 to organize the collegiate school under the charter, the trustees among other things ordered that the rector "shall take effectual care that said students be weekly (at such seasons as he shall see cause to appoint) caused memoriter to recite the Assembly's catechism in Latin, and Dr. Ames's Theological Theses, of which, as also Ames's Cases of Conscience, he shall make or cause to be made from time to time such explanations as may, through the blessing of God, be most conducive to their establishment in the principles of the Christian, Protestant religion" (1 Trumb. 475). The other books were to be studied and recited; Ames's Cases of Conscience was only to be explained by the rector or by his direction. How the order in this respect was carried out appears from the college laws of 1720 and 1726, which prescribe, "All students. . on Sabbath morning shall attend the explanation of Ames's Cases of Conscience." The rector was to explain, in such manner as might be most conducive to the establishment of the students in the principles of the Christian, Protestant religion. The book is not a creed. It is to be presumed that the rector taught nothing after the passage of the act, contrary to the toleration act of 1708, "copied from the celebrated toleration act of William and Mary." It is admitted that the work would not be a good text-book now, that few of the graduates have read it, and it may be added, or wish to read it, and if that is important, that it is not written in classical Latin.

In tracing the progress of enlightenment to the present times, it is said that "it was found more than a hundred years ago, intolerably irksome to require the president, etc., to assent to the Westminister Catechism and Confession of Faith. The Saybrook Platform was substituted for them in 1778." In 1722, when the trustees excused Rector Cutler from all further services as rector of Yale College, the trustees voted "That all such persons as shall hereafter be elected to the office of rector or tutor in the college, shall before they are accepted therein, before the trustees declare their assent to the confession of faith owned and assented to by the elders and messengers of the churches in the colony of Connecticut, assembled by delegation at Saybrook, September 9, 1708, [the Saybrook Platform] and confirmed by act of the General Assembly." In 1753 the corporation resolved, "That the Assembly's Catechism and the confession of faith received, and established in the churches of this colony [the Saybrook Platform], (which is an abridgment of the Westminster confession) contains a just summary of the most important doctrines of the Christian religion; and that the true sense of the sacred Scriptures is justly collected and summed up in these compositions." "That every person who shall hereafter be chosen president, fellow, professor of divinity or tutor, in the college, shall before he enter on the execution of his office, publicly give his consent to the said catechism and confession of faith [the Saybrook Platform] as containing a just summary of the Christian religion as before expressed, and renounce all doctrines or principles contrary thereunto" (2 Trumb., xxxiv., 317, 319). The difference between. the Westminster confession and the Saybrook platform may be left to be settled with President Clap and his associates. The ministers and messengers of the churches, at Saybrook in 1708, agreed that the confession of faith, owned and assented unto by the elders and messengers assembled at Boston, in New England, May 12th, 1680, being the second session of that synod, be recommended" to the General Assembly "for their public testimony thereunto as the FAITH of the churches of this colony. The recommendation was adopted" (1 Trumb., 483). It requires more patience than we like to ask or exercise to

*This, Dr. Trumbull says, was the Savoy confession.

enter into the ecclesiastical matters, into which we have been unwillingly led. Did Yale College by the act of 1745 become a secular college?

President Clap in his argument on the right of visitation says, "his most excellent majesty, who by the act of union was obliged to consent to the Westminster confession of faith, received in the Church of Scotland, as being agreeable to the word of God, and containing the sum and substance of the doctrine of the reformed churches." (2 Trumb. 332). Similar is the confession of faith of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. The important step was taken when any religious test not merely by subscription, but by declaration, was abolished by the corporation.

We are not anxious to defend the Puritans of New England. It is unnecessary. They must be judged according to their times, as the Rev. Phillips Brooks says or suggests of the fathers of the church.* As has also been said, the foundation stones of a building are not the most nicely polished ones. The Puritans founded Harvard College or University and Yale College, grammar schools, and common schools. Their work in educa cation remains, which shows some solidity in the foundations. * See sermon on All Saints' Day. Sermons published 1878, pp. 120-1.

WM. BLISS,

51 William St., City of New York.

ARTICLE V.-MILTON'S ANGELS.

In an article on the Plan of Paradise Lost, published in this periodical, March, 1883, the writer had occasion to speak of certain characteristics of Milton's supernatural beings. A systematic account of these beings did not come within the scope of that paper, but the interest of the subject may perhaps make its separate treatment from a new standpoint not unwelcome. Other writers have considered Milton's angels mainly as products of literary art; I wish to examine them as products of thought, giving attention to the inner meaning rather than to the outward form. Convinced that there has already been too much unintelligent criticism, I venture upon the far more difficult and in some respects perilous task of interpretation. With little to say about the soundness or the propriety of the poet's methods and opinions, I shall content myself with inquiring what they are.

A glance at the first drafts of Paradise Lost, when the subject was still under consideration for dramatic treatment, will discover among the dramatis persone a large preponderance of what are known as allegorical characters, such as Conscience, Death, Ignorance, Justice, Faith, Hope, and Wisdom. There is a noticeable tendency, as the work progresses, towards a substitution of what may be called real for allegorical charactersa translation of the abstract into the concrete. The substitution is not complete even in the finished epic, as we see in the presence of such characters as Sin, Death, Chaos, and Night. Hence have arisen the criticisms of Addison, Landor and others condemning the mixture of allegory and plain fact.

The original abstractions, however, do not disappear from the stage, but remain under the forms and names of the pagan gods of western Asia and southern Europe. The spirits who meet and contend in battle are the virtues and vices that wage perpetual war in man's moral nature and by sympathy cause disorder and ruin even in the external world. The gods of the heathen had their origin in ideas. Men did not grossly worship

the rudely carved or moulded masses of wood, stone, and metal, but they offered devotion to an idea which the image merely brought to mind. Mars was honored by every nation that delighted in war for its own sake; Minerva was reverenced wherever philosophy was made the chief end of life. The ceremonies with which at special times the divinity was worshiped were mere external signs of the inward life of the people. Starting with this spiritual conception of the gods of old-gods still at the present day, though not openly acknowledged-Milton was able to give his descriptions, a verisimilitude which perhaps could have been gained in no other way, and at the same time to proceed with that confidence and positiveness which come only from the consciousness of stating unassailable truth.

With a little careful thought it is possible in most cases to determine with certainty what moral quality each of Milton's characters is intended to represent. The form, stature, attire, words and actions of each are always consistent with its central nature. Each is also associated with some force, agent, or phenomenon in the material world which suggests and illustrates it. Besides, the gods of the Orient and those of the Occident were essentially the same, so that while the poet commonly prefers the Biblical names and descriptions, his spirits may and do reappear in the lines of Homer and Virgil. This fact often gives us the advantage of two sets of examples to fix the precise nature of each spirit. Even when a spirit is merely named, and that but once, we have usually the means of finding the reasons for its introduction. Let us examine some of the results which a course of study under the guidance of these principles has given.

To avoid the confusion which would come from an attempt to carry on all the parts of the subject together, I propose to notice first the moral qualities which the spirits represent, then the external forms in which they appear, and afterward the relation of Milton's characters to Homer's and Virgil's. The moral part may be regarded as the essential nature of the characters which the external form is intended to manifest and illustrate to human sense; while the identification of his characters with those of the epic writers of old, gives Milton a literary authority which cannot be spoken against.