THE BRITISH MUSEUM. You would not think of going to London without seeing the British Museum; but you will be sure to come away with a feeling of dissatisfaction; for there is so much to be seen of the works of God and the works of man; of things ancient and things modern; of articles that are common and articles rare; that you will certainly wish you had sufficient time to examine some appreciable portion of this vast collection. But let us go and do the best we can, and get a glimpse, if we cannot make a full examination. The Museum is in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury; and if you get into an omnibus at the Bank, they will set you down at Museum Street, in Holborn, only a few yards from the entrance. Sir Hans Sloane, who died in 1753, in his will offered to Parliament, for £20,000, his collection of antiquities and other curiosities, valued at £50,000, on condition that it should be made available for national purposes. The offer was accepted; Montague House was purchased for £10,250; the Harleian collection of MSS. was also purchased and added to the collection, and the Museum was opened to the public. Other additions were made from time to time, and more room being needed, the present building was commenced in 1823, and, although about a million pounds have been expended, it is not yet completed; for the cry is still for more room. It is a handsome building, in Grecian style, with a frontage of three hundred and seventy feet, and a portico which contains forty-four columns. The Museum is open to the public, free, three days in each week; the sculpture galleries, to artists, who obtain tickets, five days a week; and the reading room, to readers who obtain tickets, six days a week; but not to the public, as that would interfere with those who go there for purposes of research. The institution is closed the first week in the months of January, May, and September, in each year. But where shall we begin? Let us take the Natural History collections. These are in the galleries on the upper floor. In a case at the head of the stairs stands a gorilla, shot by M. Du Chaillu. It is nearly six feet high, and with it are a female and some young ones. There are numerous other specimens of the monkey tribe, with lions, tigers, hyenas, bears, elephants, giraffes, zebras, buffaloes, camels, hares, rats, and every other known quadruped. There they stand, and you can examine them at your leisure, if you have it, without fear or danger, and they will not THE BRITISH MUSEUM. run away from you. Here also are the walrus and various other seals, with porpoises, &c. The collection of birds is very rich and extensive; and so is that of eggs. The insects are innumerable. The same may be said of fishes of all kinds; while lizards, serpents, crocodiles, and alligators, abound. Here also are sponges, corals, woods, seeds, and whatever else is necessary to complete this department. We must not forget the fossils, for these are very numerous. Here are the bones of the megatherium, the mastodon, the mammoth, the iguanodon, icthæosaurus, demosaurus, and numerous others of all kinds and sizes. Here also are fossil vegetables as well as animals. Are you interested in minerals? Here you have them in great variety. There is also a very large collection of meteoric stones, which are worthy of attention. But we must go down stairs into the department of antiquities. The Townley collection contains busts of Greek poets, sages, and statesmen, besides other matters of interest. The Lycian room contains antiquities discovered in Lycia, by Sir Charles Fellows. The Elgin marbles were collected by the Earl of Elgin, about A.D. 1800. He obtained permission of the Turkish government to remove them, and although he has been execrated by Lord Byron and others for what was called a sacrilegious act, it is easy to see that they are of more value here than they would be crumbling and uncared for among the ruins from which he rescued them. Among them is the frieze from the Parthenon at Athens, which consists of a series of exquisite bas-reliefs, representing the great procession of the Panathena, held every six years at Athens. Here also are the Phrygalian marbles, the Ægina marbles, and the Bodroum marbles, each presenting their several claims to attention. The Egyptian antiquities are in three large halls. They number about six thousand objects. Here is a colossal head of the great king Rameses, found at Thebes; there is the sarcophagus of Necho, found at Alexandria; and there is the Rosetta stone, which, having an inscription three times repeated in as many different characters, gave the first clue to the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. It also was found at Alexandria. Besides these, there are numerous mummies of men, women, children, the ibis, oxen, cats, and other animals, with papyric, vases, coffins, &c. But we must pass on this way, for here is something you must not miss. You have read Layard's accounts of his discoveries in Assyria and at Nineveh, and here you have the results before you. THE BRITISH MUSEUM. For I have seen numerous pictures of the sculptured slabs, and have seen two or three of the slabs at Bowdoin college in Maine; but here you have a large collection. These slabs delineate sieges, battles, and defeats, some of which are referred to in the Bible, and numerous other matters of Assyrian history. There are the large winged and human-headed lions and bulls. There are the eagleheaded men, supposed to be the god Nisroch, and numerous other figures which are interesting to look at as the relics of past ages. The Ethnographical room contains figures of men and women dressed to show the costumes worn in China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Sea Islands and Peru, and by the Esquimaux of Greenland and other northern regions. There are also some of the copper relics from the bottom of the Swiss lakes, which made so much noise a few years ago; while of British antiquities there are porcelain, copper, seals, chessmen of the thirteenth century, &c. But we must go into the Library and Reading Room. several years before I left London, I had a ticket of admission to the reading room, and I have now obtained a renewal of this privilege. But the old reading room is gone; and we find, instead, what I think may truly be said to be the finest in Europe. It is circular, is one hundred and forty feet in diameter, and one hundred and six feet high, and is surmounted by an elegant dome where it is lighted. It was erected in 1854-7, and with its adjacent rooms, cost £150,000. Against the walls, all around the room, are cases, which contain about twenty thousand books of reference, which any reader may take and use at his pleasure. In the galleries above are books, which you ask for by ticket, and which will be brought to you by an attendant. In the centre of the room is the superintendent's desk, and semi-circular tables with cases under them, containing the catalogue in two or three hundred volumes, arranged alphabetically. Above these are printed tickets, on which you fill up the titles and other descriptions of the books you wish, with the number of the table at which you sit, and hand them to one of the assistants. These tables fill up the open space between the catalogue tables and the book cases. They will accommodate three hundred readers, each having an entire table to himself. There are about nine hundred thousand printed books, and about seventy-five thousand are added every year. There are fifteen hundred copies of the Bible in various editions and languages; the Hebrew books form the largest collection in the world. The collection of American books is very full and complete. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL. I do not know how many volumes of manuscripts there are; but the list I have numbers more than fifty thousand, and they do not include the whole. Among them are the Cottonian, the Harleian, the Oriental, and other collections, besides thousands obtained from general sources. What a wealth of intellect is collected in these rooms! I used to spend three or four days a month here; and now I should like to spend three months in examining what is stored here; but all I can hope for are a few hasty visits. This institution costs the nation a number of thousands of pounds a year; but it is money well laid out. It furnishes the means of recreation and instruction to thousands of persons, poor as well as rich, and large numbers avail themselves of the privilege. I am glad to have had the opportunity of once more seeing this place, which I was accustomed to visit often in the olden times. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL. WHY IS IT CALLED? MANFULLY, and with a zeal worthy of a better cause, the Pope of Rome and his minions have stood against the progress of civilization and enlightenment. As in the days of Galileo, the church decreed that the world did not move, so have they used all diligence to establish that decree, intellectually and morally. But in spite of the most untiring effort, the progress of the age and the march of intellect have been too much for the papacy. And more rapid than all else has been the progress of religious truth. And if, at sometimes, it has seemed of a slower growth, this seeming has been only temporary, to be succeeded by more rapid progress. True religion, civilization and science, go hand in hand, and constitute a trinity whose power is not easily resisted even by priestcraft. Not by the labours of missionaries or of resident Protestants, but by the outside pressure of truth and the progress of surrounding nations, have papal countries become measurably enlightened in spite of themselves. The bulls of the Pope and the denunciations of prelates have been fulminated against light and knowledge, but with no avail. The Encyclical Letter of the Pope, issued in Dec., 1864, and the Syllabus which accompanied it, in language plain and undisguised, uttered a condemnation of almost every form of progress THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL. in the civilized world, and anathematized them as " damnable heresies." Freedom of the press, Bible Societies, Clerical Associations, Independence of Church and State, Marriage as a Civil Contract, all Education not controlled by the Catholic Church, the equality of the Clergy and Laity, and almost every other result of independent thought and real progress, has had ten times more curses than the barren fig tree. But of what avail? In spite of pontifical decrees, "the world moves," no more retarded by the curses of Pius IX. than by the decrees of Urban VIII. Superstition and despotism have been building walls around all papal countries, but the light shines through them. Rays have streamed across the chaotic territories of France and Spain, Austria and Italy, and have gleamed upon the windows of the Vatican itself. It heeds no more the prohibitions of the papal power than did the rising tide the mandates of old King Canute. The progressive minds in the church are stirred. Father Hyacinthe gives tongue to the emotions of thousands on this wise: "I raise, therefore, before the Holy Father and the Council, my protest as a Christian and a priest, against those doctrines and those practices, which are called Roman, but which are not Christian, and which, by their encroachments, always more audacious and more baneful, tend to change the constitution of the Church, the basis and the form of its teaching, and even the spirit of its piety. I protest against the divorce, as impious as it is insensate, sought to be effected between the church, which is our eternal mother, and the society of the nineteenth century, of which we are the temporal children, and towards which we have also duties and regards. I protest against that opposition more radical and more frightful still to human nature, attacked and outraged by these false doctors, in its most indestructible and its most holy aspirations. I protest, above all, against the sacrilegious perversion of the gospel of the Son of God Himself, the spirit and the letter of which are trampled under foot by the Pharisaism of the new land." Thousands upon thousands agree to the above sentiments of Father Hyacinthe; and yet, like him, they would say: "It is my most profound conviction that, if France in particular, and the Latin races in general, are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the principal cause undoubtedly is not Catholicism itself, but the manner in which Catholicism has, for a long time, been understood and practiced." In all the countries we have named above, and in Germany and Central and South America as well, |