in the second part, containing an account of the literary helps to the study of modern languages, the books relating to the French and English languages only are given, those relating to the German not being supposed

necessary.

THE LABORING CLASSES AND COMMUNISTS IN GREECE AND ROME, from original sources. By W. Drumann, pp. 364. Königsberg, 1860.1

This veteran scholar and historian, author of the elaborate historical work on Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero, and their contemporaries, and other books of sterling value, says in his preface to this work: "Whether it was expedient for me, in my advanced age, to write another book, must be left to the judgment of those who read it." We feel quite sure not only that those who are acquainted with his other works will read this, but that they will recognize here as there the original investigator and the profound scholar. The title of the book should have been, The Laboring Classes among the Greeks and Romans; for the communists are very properly disposed of in a few pages. The first half of the work is devoted to the laborers of Greece; the second, to those of Rome. After a few paragraphs on the subject in the times of Homer, the author enters upon the historical period, and shows at considerable length the degradation of labor among the Greeks, giving a picture that would answer very well for the slave states of our own country. He then considers the condition and character of the various classes of laborers whose occupations were regarded as not liberal. These were mechanics, manufacturers, merchants, artists, writers and orators who received pay, sophists, sycophants, actors, physicians, athletes, and mercenary soldiers.

Mechanics were regarded with little or no respect, because they were supposed to be without bodily or mental culture, and without the necessary leisure to attend to public affairs. They were not entitled to all the rights of citizenship, but were an inferior, and sometimes a servile, class.

Manufacturers, even when they employed slaves to do the work, were regarded as having an ignoble calling. The number of slaves employed by such was very great. The twenty thousand slaves who fled to the Spartans, when the Peloponnesian war raged in Attica, were mostly operatives in factories.

Athens was favorably situated for commerce; but this business was mostly in the hands of foreigners, and the imports greatly exceeded the exports. Merchants were not respected, not even importers, or wealthy men who furnished the capital for others, much less the retail merchants and shopkeepers. Such men rarely participated in public affairs. Plato says: "This business should be put into the hands of the weak, and those who are unfit for other occupations."

1 Die Arbeiter und Communisten in Griechenland und Rom, nach den Quellen, von. W. Drumann.

Adepts in the fine arts fared but little better in respect to the esteem in which they were held. Though music was highly cultivated after the time of the Persian wars, and musicians and music teachers were well paid, still the profession was little regarded.

Painters, who received pay for their pictures, were no more honored than musicians. Both were well patronized, and could easily accumulate wealth, but that was all.

Sculptors were put in the same category. They were employed and richly rewarded; but the proud Athenian citizen, who participated in the affairs of state, looked upon them as inferiors, as but the necessary means of their own luxury.

Teachers by profession were mere employés. There were no public schools, and the youth were consequently instructed by private teachers, each teaching his own art separately. The Sophists were no exceptions. They taught for money; and that was enough to fix a stigma even upon the best of them.

If an orator prepared a plea to be delivered by a client, or pleaded for him, and received a fee, he was looked upon with disfavor, and was liable to be reproached for it.

Actors were less despised in Greece than in Rome.

The occupation of the sycophant, or paid informer, was justly despised. Physicians were sometimes employed by cities, and were then well paid. The people were less munificent, and it was often necessary for the physician to take pupils to increase his income. He was accordingly reckoned as belonging to the laboring classes.

Athletes, though greatly patronized in Greece, generally belonged to the lower classes. As a profession they were held in no esteem.

The citizen who took up arms in defence of his country was sure to be honored; but the mercenary, who made war a trade, held a low place in the public estimation.

From all the above statements, and we have only touched upon this single point, it appears that labor was not duly honored in Greece. A true and lasting civilization can never spring from such a state of society. Nothing but conquest and plunder can support a state in which industry is so dishonored.

The book before us, being made up mostly of facts, briefly stated, with references to authorities at the foot of the page for every statement, does not admit either of abridgment or of illustration by examples. We will not allude to the second part, which relates to Rome, except to remark that its topics are more numerous than those of the first, and that they occupy a larger portion of the work. The classical scholar cannot fail to be interested in a book containing such a collection of facts, which is the result of a careful and long continued study of the Greek and Roman classics on the part of the venerable author.

FREE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND ITS OPPONENTS; an illustration of the modern systems of theology with particular reference to the Swiss Church. By Dr. A. N. Böhner, pp. 131. Zürich, 1859.1

The author of the pamphlet above named is one of those theologians who is not alarmed at the scepticism of the last or of the present generation of philosophers and critics. In his view, it is only necessary to put their systems side by side with Christianity, and to subject them all to an equally close scrutiny, and the solidity and superiority of the latter will become strikingly evident to every unsophisticated mind. Many plausible things. can be said against the truth: many deductions may be drawn from our partial knowledge of it, which will perplex some minds. But truth, after all, cannot be talked down, nor reasoned down.

The various theories of modern scepticism in Germany are analyzed and classified by the author, and then the fundamental principle of each is examined with a boldness and power that remind one of the manner of the Reformers. He first shows the absurdity of materialism, recently proclaimed in Switzerland by certain young teachers as something new, which maintains that "a thinking being can spring from unthinking matter," or, as our author expresses it, "a living child from a dead mother." Pantheism, in all its forms, he says elsewhere, is essentially at variance with our moral consciousness; and would, if universally accepted, lead to the dissolution of society. The existence of society, of virtue, law, and government, depends on the reality of moral distinctions, which pantheism makes only a cloud of mist. Rationalism teaches that the revelation of God is to be sought only in the human reason. Speculatively, this theory has no solid foundation; and practically, history is one grand demonstration of its falsehood. Symbolism, which petrifies Christianity in creeds, and subjects the mind to human authorities, is so opposed to a free and spiritual Christianity that it cannot stand the test of time. A free biblical theology embraces all that is true in other systems. Its first principle, than which nothing can be more certain in philosophy, is that something actually exists and has always existed; and that this something is neither the thinking subject, nor the outward world, but the Infinite Being who is the author of both. Admitting that the character of this First Cause is, in some measure, made known in the human reason, in the laws of nature, and in the course of history, still, it is maintained, that the true and grand revelation is made by the Spirit of God through the medium of Christianity. The writer, in successive chapters, compares each point of his theory with those of the opposing theories; and believes that every sound and unprejudiced mind will perceive that both the authority of reason and the evidence of facts will be on the side of the theology of the Bible. Without agreeing with him in all his expositions of Christianity, we must say that they are in the main just, and that his defence of the Christian religion is strong and manly, and his

1 Die freiforschende Bibeltheologie und ihre Gegner.

assault upon the theories of recent sceptics are as destructive as they are brief and pithy.

LIVES AND SELECT WRITINGS OF THE FATHERS AND FOUNDERS OF

THE REFORMED CHURCH. Supplementary volume, Part First. Life of John A Lasco, by P. Bartels, of Leo Judae, by C. Pestalozzi, of Francis Lambert of Avignon, by F. W. Hassencamp; and of William Farel and Peter Viret, by Dr. E. Schmidt. 1860.1

The men whose lives are here represented may properly be styled reformers of the third rank. Their names are so often mentioned, and the part they acted so often referred to, in the lives of the chief reformers, and in the history of the times, that every reader desires to know more of them. Besides, the principal figures are more distinctly marked when viewed, not only from their own place, but from other points of observation also. It is one thing to be with Luther, with Zuingli, with Calvin, and, occasionally, to meet with Melanchthon, with Bullinger, and with Beza; and quite another thing to be companions of the latter, and from their position to contemplate the acts of the former. In like manner, we gain new light when we look upon the same scenes from still other points of view. We cordially welcome, therefore, these supplementary additions. The editors have shown excellent judgment in putting this third class of men in groups in a single volume. Viewed in connection with the great reformers, they add to the interest of the whole.

In the brief but excellent biography of a Lasco, we are first introduced to a young Polish noble, brought up in splendor near the throne, and early entering upon a diplomatic career. Again, we behold him the friend and patron of Erasmus, living in the same house with him in Louvain and supporting his table. Now he is in Germany, now in Italy, and then again in Poland. The king offers him high preferment in the church. This young man of fortune, while studying in Switzerland, had made the acquaintance of Zuingli and of other reformers, and had imbibed their doctrines, and could not consent to compromise his conscience for any earthly prospects. He leaves his country and his powerful friends, where he cannot conscientiously act the part that is expected of him, and he becomes an humble pastor and leads first a private life, and is finally made pastor and superintendent in Embden, in East Fresiland. There he becomes the head of the Protestants, supported by the Duchess Anne of Guelders and beloved by the majority of the people; but opposed by the Catholic party there, by the powerful court of Brabant at Antwerp, and by the imperial government. Vexed and threatened by the last two during the odious and oppressive period of" the Interim," and invited to England by Cranmer on

Leben und ausgewählte Schriften der Väter und Begründer der Reformirten Kirche. IX (Supplement) Theil. I. Hälfte. Johannes a Lasco, Leo Judä, Franciscus Lambert, Wilhelm Farel und Peter Viret.

the accession of Edward VI. to the throne, he settled in London as the pastor of the foreign church, composed of refugees from Germany, the Netherlands, and France. Here he remained and exerted a wide-spread influence, till the death of the prince and the accession of Mary made it necessary for him and his church to flee. The history of that flight, first to Denmark, then to the north of Germany, and the cruelties shown them by the intolerance of the extreme Lutherans, his return to Emden, their settlement in Frankfort, and his final call to Poland to reform the church of his native country, make up the remaining part of the narrative. In the midst of his toils he was suddenly overtaken by death, and thus closed his laborious and troubled life, in which, with singular purity and integrity, he sacrificed all things for Christ. The author, a resident of East Friesland, has left nothing to be desired in that part of the biography which relates to a Lasco's residence there. Of the youth and of the last days of the Polish reformer, spent in his native country, only meagre accounts are given. Of the intermediate time, passed in England and Frankfort, the narrative is sufficiently full.

The biographical sketch of Leo Judae, by Pestalozzi, gives evidence of no less original research than the life of Bullinger, by the same author, noticed in a previous number. A school acquaintance and friend of Zuingli, his successor at Einsindel, his assistant and associate at Zurich, a scholar and translator of various works of Erasmus, Luther, and Zuingli, this man "of small stature, of marked features, glowing countenance, and shrill, musical voice," was as modest as he was acute and learned, and chose to act a second part rather than to take the lead himself. He put forward his friend, Bullinger, twenty years younger than himself, to be Zuingli's successor, on the death of the latter, rather than accept the place himself. In this he acted wisely, partly because he was not born for control, and partly because he had doubts in respect to a resort to civil authority in matters of religion, -views far in advance of his age, and in which he would have found as many enemies then as he would find friends now.

In passing to the life of Lambert of Avignon, the reader finds himself in a new atmosphere, almost as much as if he had crossed the boundary of the empire and entered the territory of France. Lambert is thoroughly French in his character, — ardent, animated, rhetorical, and occasionally a little headlong.

Of the nine volumes of the lives and select writings of the fathers and founders of the Reformed Church, only two and a half remain to be executed. These are the lives of Calvin, of Beza, and sketches of less distinguished men, to be comprised in the second half of the supplementary volume. But little new matter can be expected in the volumes yet to be written, as we have a very elaborate life of Calvin by Henry, and the beginning of one of Beza by Baum. Of the volumes which have already appeared, those on Peter Martyr, Bullinger, and on Capito and Bucer, furnish the most new information.