the principles of moral greatness. Of this his letter to Trajan affords a beautiful illustration. He thus lays down the rule of imperial duty :-" Let your government commence in your own breast; and lay the foundation of it in the command of your passions." What a lesson to teach the ruler of the world! Herodotus, with all his credulity, was a man of many virtues, but we can hardly call him great. Xenophon was the Addison of Greece; but Addison was not great. Thucydides and Polybius were both men of vast intellectual power; yet they were both wanting in the leading elements of moral greatness. The rest were still more deficient. No exception can be made in behalf of Demosthenes. He excelled in no one moral quality. He was, in fact, neither patriot, philanthropist, nor philosopher. He was merely a speaker-a marvellous, a Inatchless orator.

Of the Roman writers above enumerated, we cannot speak more favourably than of the Greeks. C. Nepos and Sallust were both at best but elegant triflers, who have procured immortality on easy terms. Indeed, the whole of these authors together did not comprise half so much real moral greatness as Numa. Would it not, then, be preposterous to compare them with any genuine Christian philanthropist, and still more with a Christian missionary, and that missionary, John Williams! They were all wanting—and all greatly, although not all equally wanting in the first principles of moral greatness. Even Cicero, whose genius placed him at the head of the splendid assemblage, was extremely defective in every thing required by his own definition. He was vanity itself, and weak as woman! His moral, were utterly disproportionate to his mental, powers. Never, perhaps, did one of the human race exhibit so much genius, so many talents, such an amount of intellectual culture, and such a mass of literary acquirements, in combination with so much imbecility!

When we inquire into the moral and intellectual greatness of the ancients, we labour under several disadvantages. Multitudes of magnanimous spirits, of whom there is no record, have appeared in our world. The reason is obvious. The highest form of magnanimity is active benevolence, which has but seldom been allied to literary tastes and habits. Persons thus distinguished, therefore, have not often recorded their own actions; and men of letters, whose province it was to confer immortality, having, for the most part, but little sympathy with the pursuits of the benevolent, have but too generally disregarded them. It is the most remarkable fact in the history of ancient literature, that even Socrates, the father of Gentile Philosophy, the Patriarch of pagan Magnanimity, left no writings behind him. We owe all our knowledge of him to his illustrious disciples who have embalmed the memory of his actions, lessons, wrongs, and death. Speaking generally, the most magnanimous portion of the Greeks and Romans were not literary; and the most literary portions of the Greeks and Romans were not magnanimous. The result is that a multitude of characters, more or less magnanimous, have been buried in oblivion. Genuine magnanimity has rarely found a faithful historian of its deeds and glory. Upon a large scale, however, it has seldom courted the historian's attention. War, all-devouring war, has been the staple of history! Withdraw from both the prose and the poetry of ancient times all that appertains to war, and what remains? That peculiar cast of intellect which delights in study, and is necessary to high achievements in literature, has not often been combined with such measures of moral feeling, of active principle, and of constitutional vigour, as are necessary to great efficiency in benevolent exertion. Polybius is an example to my purpose. He was in several respects the Gibbon of his age, vast in view, powerful in reason, cold in affection, and deeply

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tainted with impiety. Nearly the same terms may be

applied to Thucydides. Livy was a man of fine taste, of fine temper, of wide comprehension, and of a genius more akin to civil than to military pursuits, the Robertson of Rome; but he wanted the chief essentials of

moral greatness. Tacitus possessed still more depth and power than Livy; his mind presented a splendid specimen of intellectual and imaginative ability, with a high moral sense; but yet his character displayed little moral greatness. The truth is, that the chief movers of mankind, the benefactors as well as the disturbers of the world, the men most eminent for good no less than the men most eminent for evil, have been but little addicted to literature. Literary men have often attained to moral greatness of thought, but seldom to moral greatness of action. It is in vain, therefore, that we look to literary men of even the first distinction for the highest examples of moral greatness.

Let us now pass to the poets of antiquity. With more splendour than the prose writers, they exhibit still less worth. They were a wicked and a wretched fraternity-very generally the worst of men. Poetry and passion are inseparable, if not identical; and the passions of the heathen poets were almost uniformly in the highest degree corrupt and pestiferous. Homer's writings throw but little light upon his character, and we have no other source of accurate information. The light that is thus reflected is not much to the credit of his benevolence. He is the poet of havoc ! Blood and carnage appear to have been his native element! Of all the Greek poets, none came so near the precincts of moral greatness as Hesiod. It says much for the sense of the first ages, that, in the poetical contention at Chalcis, between Homer and Hesiod, the latter, if we may credit Plutarch and Gyraldus, was declared victor. Cleomenes, while he intended but to sneer, paid a high compliment to Hesiod, when he said

Homer was the poet of the Lacedæmonians, and Hesiod of the Helots or slaves, because Homer celebrated the ravages of war, and Hesiod the arts of peace. Sappho, wonderful as was her genius, was a disgrace, not only to her sex, but to her species. Alcæus was sold into the slavery of his passions. Anacreon was a vile voluptuary, without one redeeming quality! Euripides combined good words with bad deeds. Eschylus was cold and stately, without either benevolence or moral sentiment. Sophocles, with much genius, had little worth and no greatness. The same may be affirmed of Simonides. With respect to Aristophanes, it is enough to consummate his glory or his shame, to remember that he wrote the comedy of the Clouds to ridicule Socrates! Theocritus, Lycophron, Callimachus, and Oppian, were but triflers. Amidst the poets of Greece, however, one man arose to vindicate the honours, and assert the high prerogative of poetical genius. That man was Pindar, one of the brightest spirits of the heathen world. He was, in my humble judgment, the poet of peace, of truth, of affability, of hospitality, of prudence, of piety, of every virtue and of every grace. Ancient times present no poet superior to Pindar in greatness and sublimity, and, after what I have already said, I need hardly add that his greatness was moral.

There are few pursuits in which the genius of Greece more surpassed that of Rome than in poetry. The Roman poets had much less genius without more virtue. It is in vain that we look to Plautus and Terence for moral or any other kind of greatness. Lucretius was a profligate and an atheist ! Catullus was a slave to the worst propensities; Horace was a courtly libertine; and Tibullus outran Horace in the race of debauchery! Propertius, with more elegant learning, was no better. Ovid was as foul and debased

a spirit as ever trod the banks of the Tiber! His

heart was a fountain of iniquity sufficient to 'pollute and destroy the souls of all the millions that peopled the Roman empire! And yet the works of this base and vicious man are at the present hour a school book throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain ! Plato banished even Homer from his commonwealth ; British Christians place Ovid in the hands of their sons! Lucan was the poet of war, a mere rhetorical historian. Persius and Juvenal, in some respects, were men of merit; but they were still at the furthest remove from moral greatness. Martial gave lessons in vice by his method of reproving it! Virgil was a man of amiable manners, of splendid genius, a poet of the highest order, but he contributed nothing to the good of his country or the improvement of mankind! Upon the principles of Cicero, he, too, must be excluded for ever from the roll of moral greatness.

My dear Sir, in setting forth this estimate, I have used great freedom of speech; I have spoken with the less hesitation, because I address one who is thoroughly competent to enter into the question, and to affirm or reverse my decision. The judgment thus formed is certainly not complimentary to the virtue and the morals of ancient times; but it is enough for my purpose if it be according to truth. The whole library of the ancient Classics is but as the dust in the balance when weighed against the literature of Modern Missions. The "Enterprises" of the late Rev. John Williams is a publication of infinitely greater worth than all that Greece and Rome have transmitted

to our times. That volume exhibits the missionary character in all its goodness and greatness.

As I have already said, man, according to the Scriptures, is good but as he does good. True greatness consists solely in resemblance to the moral image and character of God; and no man is great but as he promotes greatness among others who are less than himself. How striking is the