therefore, addressed itself to the Teutonic mind through all its national ramifications, a ready assent was given; for the system was accompanied with irrefragable demonstration, and every doctrine was a soundly-established problem. But it was far otherwise with the Italian intellect. To it the doctrines so presented were not only too naked, but the homage they required was too absolute. Truth is every thing; but must the recipient, therefore, be nothing? It was a boggling conclusion; and therefore the intellect of Italy must needs do something in the way of improving and adorning these doctrines, for the purpose of proving itself a thinking being and free agent, instead of a mere passive believer. Some, therefore, endeavoured to beautify the newly-restored gospel with the tinsel of Platonism, while others attempted to rationalise it with Unitarianism. It was precisely in this fashion that their fathers had acted in the early days of Christianity after the apostles had passed away they added and subtracted, they explained and refined, until revelation itself vanished in the process, and left a craving void to be filled with the inane Popery that succeeded. When the descendants of these men thus followed in their steps, the wandering was sure to end in a return to Rome. They had gone out; but that which should have been the pilgrimage of life was nothing more than a day's journey or a morning promenade.

Another tendency of the Italian mind, through which the progress of Protestantism was first retarded, and finally thrown back, comes next to be mentioned, as it was nothing more than a corollary of the preceding. When Italy ceased to be the mistress of the world by arms, she again became its mistress by the arts: it was merely a change in the weapons and mode of warfare, while her sovereignty remained the same. This love of the beautiful, therefore, took the place of ancient valour and patriotism; it was now the master passion and prevailing characteristic of her people; and to express the winning eloquence of this new love, by the language of poetry, music, statuary, painting, architecture, and erect enduring trophies in these departments, was the great charm of life, as well as the loftiest aim of ambition. And then came the Reformation. But where were its imposing rites and gorgeous pageants-its anthems, its pictures, and its statues-that sunny world of the sublime and the beautiful, which, to the Italian, was heaven itself, with its angels and beatific visions? They were disused-they were thrust aside-they were thrown to the moles and the bats. Germany was satisfied with the True in religion, but Italy must have the Beautiful as well as the true; and therefore, in the eyes of the latter, this Protestantism was a mangled, or at best but a half-religion. She was

willing to believe and worship; but where was her gospel of carved and painted symbols, and her rubric of sweet-smelling odours and entrancing melodies, without which she felt as if she could neither supplicate nor adore? "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth:”—ah, true!-but how can we worship him without our magnificent Te Deum laudamus?

To these causes, so peculiar to Italy alone, may be traced the suppression of its Protestantism; and when we carefully estimate their weight, we shall no longer wonder that the suppression should have been so rapid as well as so complete. In twenty short years, a movement so extensive, and fraught with such promise of a happy national renewal, was arrested, and thus the generation that witnessed its glorious advent also beheld its downfall. Death, torture, imprisonment, and exile, in the first instance, had done their utmost, so that the best of Italy were destroyed, silenced, or driven by thousands into banishment. Afterwards, in the case of those who were spared, there were influences at work, silent and slow indeed, but withal as deadly and sure as the most destructive processes of persecution, under which such Protestantism as survived gradually dwindled and decayed. It was now an all but exhausted lamp burning in the close atmosphere of a tomb —a glimmering point, which the entrance of a healthy current seemed more likely to extinguish than revive. Such has it continued to be for nearly three centuries-languishing, dying, and all but unseen, yet still continuing to glimmer on. And yet, even in this little spark, we read the promise of a revival. We cannot persuade ourselves that this vitality, although so insignificant, has been continued in vain.

The most important political events of the present day all point once more to Italy, and intimate that it is again to be the battlefield upon which its spoilers shall contend for the mastery. And whether is Austria or France to be the lucky possessor of its fair provinces?—that is now the selfish question at issue among the statesmen of Europe. But a third antagonistic element exists, of which little account is taken. That element is the will of the Italians themselves. Hitherto, they have been little more than the passive victims of either power, to be bandied from one to the other as the chances of war prevailed. But whence this most degrading fatality?and how shall it be removed? These questions which the Italians have so long propounded, they have now learned to answer-and the answer is the condemnation of Popery and Rome. They see that the spirit of the one and the rule of the other are equally incompatible with national freedom, and that as long as these are endured, there is no hope of liberty.

But this is not all, nor even the best. Still there are holy a well as brave hearts in Italy, that understand the true secret of national liberty. They know that it is only the TRUTH which can make them "free indeed;" and in order to understand more completely what that truth is, and make it available for the work, they are not only reading, but circulating the Bible, in spite of the dungeon in which their zeal is to be manacled, or the scaffold on which it is to be silenced. That martyr-spirit of Italy is again awake which Rome has so often crushed, but under which she is finally doomed to perish. It was this silent and lowly but resistless agency that first converted the Pantheon, that temple of all the gods, into a heap of ruins, and the habitation of the owl and the lizard; and it is this also which is yet to rise in greater might than ever, to overthrow not only the modern Pantheon of Popery, but the seven-hilled city itself that shelters it, so that not one stone shall be left upon another. The throne of the persecuting Cæsars vanished, and that of the more persecuting pontiffs is to follow, while all that remains of either will be only an historical remembrance for future ages to wonder at and inquire. And must our glorious time-honoured Rome thus pass away! But did not Jerusalem perish also? "See what manner of stones and what buildings are here!" Yes, but they are the house of the leper. It is indeed a fearful thing this destructive process; but if an enslaved country, in order to be rightly Christianised, must first be politically emancipated, then let the destroying tempest come quickly, that it may the sooner pass away, and leave room for the operation of higher and holier agencies. When our Saviour entered the world, we know that a universal peace ushered his arrival; but we know also by what terrible wars and wasteful demolition in Italy that peace was procured, into which the Prince of Peace himself entered.

PALESTINE and ITALY-we have seen how the chief interest of the world's past history has been concentrated upon these two countries. And is their mission ended? We know from unerring prophecy that, in the first instance at least, the case is not so. Oppressed, trampled under foot, and crushed for eighteen centuries, the Jews are still as numerous as ever, and only await the summons that restores them to their home, and replaces them in more than their former grandeur. Italy, too, has passed through the furnace unconsumed. And is this wondrous indestructibility a thing of no promise-a mockery, a mere deception? Is she still so wise, so brave, so accomplished, in vain? We will not, we cannot, think so. As firmly as we believe in the futurity of any country, we do believe that Italy, after her ages of suffering, is again to take her place among the nations, and resume that sacred mission

which she so sinfully abandoned. And we do believe also, that before the great history of the world is folded up, and laid upon the funeral pyre in which the world itself shall become dust, a new and glorious decade shall have been inscribed upon it of Italian Protestantism.

ART. VIII.-Epistola ad Diognetum, Justini Philosophi et Martyris nomen præ se ferens. Textum recensuit, translatione Latina instruxit, prolegomena et adnotationes adjecit, JOAN. CAROL, THEOD. OTTO. Leipsic, 1852, 8vo, pp. 131.

WE cannot easily forget the delight with which we first perused the Epistle to Diognetus. It came to us as an exquisite specimen of the sentiment and religion of an early period, much more vital than the heavy controversies of the day, and rather resembling the short epistles of the apostles and apostolic fathers. Yet we could name few works in patristic literature, to which reference is less frequently made.

The critical edition of the Epistle to Diognetus, by Professor Otto, is well worthy of attention. An early publication of the editor on this subject appeared in 1845. A few years after, the learned Bunsen, now Prussian ambassador at London, intimated in his volume on Ignatius, that he would issue a monograph on this epistle, which he ascribes to Marcion. In 1851, Hoffman edited the Greek text, with a translation and notes. Otto saw reason to come forward with a new and enlarged edition of the work, which is now before us. Availing ourselves of his aid, and acknowledging the value of his careful apparatus, we shall express some thoughts on this most interesting relic.

The Epistle to Diognetus is in the Greek language, and fills about ten pages like those we here employ. The work has generally been ascribed to Justin Martyr, and published with his writings. It purports to be a letter to a Gentile inquirer of rank and learning, for the purpose of showing what Christianity is. It begins, therefore, by showing on what grounds the Christian rejects the ritual of the Jews and the idolatry of the Greeks. Without philosophical subtilty, and with great earnestness, the writer inveighs against image-worship. From this he proceeds to censure the sacrifices and festivals of the Jews; which, indeed, is one of the characteristic points of the whole composition. Having thus cleared the way, he describes Christianity as a phenomenon then extant in the world, and shows that it makes little of externals, but influences the heart,

VOL. II.-NO. I.

manners, and life. The picture here given is a celebrated portion of the work. He indicates the source of this remarkable system as divine, and as proceeding from a descent and incarnation of the Divine wisdom. After a dark view of the state of mankind before the coming of the Son of God, he magnifies this great communication, and breaks out into praises of the love of God and the atoning work of Christ. To these are added two closing paragraphs, which are not regarded as genuine.

From the subject we pass to the text of this ancient work. Three codices only are known to exist. These are the Strasburg manuscript, the apograph of Stephanus, and the apograph of Beurer.

The Strasburg manuscript is a bombycinus of 260 folios. It contains several acknowledged works of Justin, and then 5° Tou αὐτοῦ πρὸς Διόγνητον; followed by one or two tracts in another hand, and by a few treatises, some of which are in the first hand. The older part of the codex, and that which contains our epistle, was executed in the thirteenth century. It was once the property of the celebrated Reuchlin, as appears by his autograph in the reverse of the board cover. Then it fell into the hands of the monks of the abbey of Maursmünster, in Alsace. During the wars of the French Revolution it was brought to Strasburg. Mice have nested in it, and devoured large portions of the second part. Otto quotes a letter from Cunitz, an eminent theologian of Strasburg, who says that the character is generally careful and uniform, but that many illegible places exist; further, that the agreement is striking with the apograph of Beurer.

The apograph of Beurer is preserved in the public library of Leyden. It once belonged to Isaac Vossius. The librarian, Mr Jacobus Geel, expresses his belief that this manuscript (Cod. Vossian. 30) is the same which Henry Stephanus copied from some unknown original, and used in his edition of 1592; that the handwriting is that of Stephanus; and that certain marginal notes are the same which appear in printed editions by this editor. Dr Van Hengel of Leyden concurs in these opinions. In the judgment of Otto this copy could not have been made from the MS. now at Strasburg.

The apograph of Beurer, the only remaining codex, comprises the Oration of the Gentiles as well as this epistle. Beurer, a professor of Freiburg, in the Breisgau, gave a version, with some emendations of lection, repeated by Stephanus, who used this copy. Stephanus avers that he and Beurer copied the same manuscript, (" sed ego ante illum;") but if so, either the transcript was very inexact, or Beurer collated some other. For Beurer often fills lacunæ in Stephanus's copy, with the