As acquainting us with the mental experiences of the most illustrious convert of the apostolic church, the Epistles have a lasting value that must make them indispensable guides to all persons, who are passing through the conflicts that generally attend the entrance upon a Christian life. As helps to experimental religion, they have exerted a power over the Church in all ages, and Christians of all communions have been able by their own experiences to bear witness to the truth, and bless the comforting influence of Paul's exhibition of the soul turning from sin and finding peace in Jesus. Although the logical faculty is Paul's marked intellectual trait, and practical will his great moral trait, we must by no means undervalue him as a man of deep feeling. His love for Christ was almost a passion of his soul, and the fervor, with which he gives utterance to this feeling, appears all the more touching and beautiful, from its union with a will so strong and an intellect so keen. His contemplations of the glorified Saviour, of the grace of charity, of the immortal life, move him to a lyric burst of feeling, that blends the deep sentiment and mystic beauty of John with his own earnest eloquence, and we forget the acute logician in the inspired prophet. It would be well if more regard were paid to the form in which the religious sentiment manifests itself in Paul, and if, without neglecting his doctrinal views, we contemplated them less as logical forms, and more in connexion with the Apostle's own glowing soul. The metaphysical character of New England theology would lose none of its depth, and gain much in power and interest, had it thus regarded the whole compass of the Apostle's mind.

As containing a system of Christian doctrine, the Epistles must have importance in all ages of the Church. Even those disposed to deny his authority in matters of faith, and to assert a right equal to his in judging of the facts and principles of the gospel, must allow that the mere opinions of a man, circumstanced and gifted as he was, must be entitled to great respect. While those of us who believe in the Apostle's peculiar communion with Christ, and special illumination upon sacred things, must look to his words with reverence high as is accorded to any of the sacred writers.

A remark of Neander may here be aptly adduced, as showing the permanent worth of Paul's views. He says that Paul was "a man distinguished, not only for the wide extent of his apostolic labors, but for his development of the fundamental

truths of the gospel in their living organic connexion, and their formation into a compact system. The essence of the gospel in relation to human nature, on one side especially, the relation namely to its need of redemption, was set by him in the clearest light; so that when the sense of that need has been long repressed or perverted, and a revival of Christian consciousness has followed a state of spiritual death, the newly awakened Christian life, whether in the Church at large or in individuals, has always drawn its nourishment from his writings. As he has presented Christianity under this aspect especially, and has so impressively shown the immediate relation of religious knowledge and experience to the Lord Jesus, in opposition to all dependence on any human mediation whatever, thus drawing the line of demarcation most clearly between the Christian and Jewish standing point; he may be considered the representative among the Apostles of the Protestant principle."

There would be great difficulties in our way, indeed, if we considered the Epistles to teach views of Christ's mission and death, not contained or implied in the Gospels, or even the opposite of the most obvious sense of the Gospels. If the Calvinistic views of Paul's doctrine of the atonement be correct, we must confess that we should be in no small degree perplexed in feeling ourselves called upon to adopt sentiments, so strongly conflicting with reason, and so different from the purport of the Gospels, merely upon Paul's authority. But no such perplexity meets us, who interpret his Epistles so perfectly in accordance with the teachings of Christ and the dictates of reason. His great doctrine of reconciliation by trusting to the offices of our Saviour's death and resurrection, or justification by faith, contains the essence of Christian truth, and urges a principle which should be dearer to none than to liberal Christians.

Whether viewed as a manifestation of heavenly love and truth, or as the great fact consummating the Christian revelation, and sealing the immortality of the soul, the death of Christ has an eternal significance, which must always render a living faith in its power the great foundation of faith and motive to duty.

It is a question in some, whether in preaching Christianity it is well to be studious of retaining the phraseology of the Apostle, or indeed to urge principles of faith and duty by personal

references to Christ, as the Apostle does, instead of using a language more general, and treating of moral fidelity and the eternal life in the abstract. But all experience shows, that preaching loses its power, when it loses its personal and historical character. The doctrine of Christ crucified and risen has always exerted vastly more power upon the soul, than any moral essays, however cogent and beautiful, or any speculations upon eternity, however ingenious or sublime: Moreover, we may retain all our liberality of spirit and our philosophical depth, without giving up those personal references and that concrete form, in which Paul presents the gospel to the churches of his charge. Still, as in the Apostle's day, the great question is asked, How shall we obtain reconciliation with God? And still, as in his day, no better answer can be given than the assurance of Paul to the Romans, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." If we may pride ourselves on our philosophy, and for faith in Christ think best to substitute faith in our own spiritual nature, we may remember that Paul was something of a philosopher, and knew something of the spiritual elements of the soul; and yet he allowed nothing to separate him from the love of Christ, nor from the doctrine of the Cross.

As an earnest champion of freedom of thought and true catholicity of feeling, Paul, in his Epistles, speaks lessons which the Church in all ages may well remember, and which in all ages have been far too much neglected. The most enthusiastic friends of modern philanthropy have by no means compassed the breadth of his gospel of brotherhood, nor the most liberal of churches reached the comprehensiveness of his charity. In all ages the fettered soul of man, in bondage to sin or in bondage to spiritual despotism, will have cause to turn for example and aid to him who declared, "where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," and who rejoiced, "that the law of the spirit of life had made him free from the law of sin and death."

From this new world, unknown to the Apostle, but so blessed by the influence of his labors, we have abundant cause to pay tribute of earnest gratitude to his memory. Under God and His Son, Paul has been the guiding spirit of American theology. The Pilgrims of the Mayflower breathed his indomitable freedom, and gloried in that justifying faith of which Jesus had elected him to be the great Apostle. The active energy of this VOL. XXXIII. 3D s. VOL. XV. NO. I.

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great missionary turned his face westward, and the whole western world has been ready to do him honor in word and deed. His visits to Europe, whether to Greece or Rome, made the great era of European civilization, and have done more than any one event to give America her present character. Not in the discoveries of navigators nor the victories of warriors, but in the life and labors of Paul, we may read the best commentary upon the maxim at once of poetry and history,

"Westward the star of empire takes its flight."

Those of us, who are sometimes weary of Paul's logical manner and practical earnestness, and disposed to complain of the formal character of the prevalent theology, and the bustling nature of ordinary religion, should check our repining, and, grateful for what the Apostle has done for us, remember that the Apostle himself united life with logic, spirituality with active zeal. Although we may pray for more of the serene and profound spirit of John in our churches, we shall never have our prayer granted by disparaging that apostle, whose doctrines exhibit the essentials of faith and life, and whose writings in their most significant passages leave us almost to doubt, whether they came from Paul, the zealous Missionary, or John, the calm Divine.

S. O.

LYCIA.

In a former number we gave some account of a journey through Asia Minor by Mr. C. Fellows, and referred then to a subsequent tour, for purposes of a more thorough investigation, performed a year or two afterwards. The volume, containing the record of the second tour in 1840, is now before us, and we propose to follow on his route, as before, this most instructive and agreeable traveller. We do not wonder that, on his return to London, he felt as if he had but most imperfectly surveyed the interesting country he had visited, and was in haste to traverse it again. In every province he visited, his time allowed him to give only days or hours to investigations

that demanded, and would have richly repaid, weeks or months. Lycia, especially, it appeared to him, he had treated with particular neglect, and he determined to pay it a second visit.

"On my second visit," he says in his preface, "I determined to turn my steps at once to Lycia; and I have, as will be seen from the line of my route on the map, traversed it in several directions. The new discoveries, which I have made on this excursion, have richly rewarded me; and I am led to believe that the materials for the historian, the philologist, and lover of art, which I have rescued from the ruins I visited, will be found of no inconsiderable value. The geographer will see that I have mapped the interior of the country, which hitherto has been unknown, and left blank in the maps." "In this small province I have discovered the remains of eleven cities not denoted in any map, and of which I believe it was not known that any traces existed. These eleven, with Xanthus and those described in my former journal, and the eleven other cities along the coast visited by former travellers, make together twenty-four of the thirty-six cities mentioned by Pliny, as having left remains still seen in his age. I also observed and have noticed in my Journal many other piles of ruins, not included in the above numbers."

But, much as Mr. Fellows has found in Lycia to reward a second journey, he has not even yet explored the whole province. His route has left untouched large districts of it. And for Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Phrygia he obtained on the former journey but the most partial and casual glimpses of the wonders they contain. We hope therefore that his second tour is not to be his last; but that where he has begun so good a work, with so much reputation to himself and advantage to science, he may be induced to carry it on to a full completion, and give to the world a thorough survey of the antiquities of Asia Minor. How cursory and incomplete even the present examination of Lycia has been, will be felt, when it is recollected that the author passed less than two months in making his researches in a district, which, as mentioned above, contained no fewer than thirty-six cities, of one third of which no traces have as yet been discovered. A portion of these may have wholly perished; others may only await in their fastnesses among the hills the approach of the traveller.

On his first journey it will be recollected that Mr. Fellows, on his arrival at Smyrna, went first to Constantinople, and then