WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and America, must have perceived that there is a great and rapidly-increasing departure from the public religious faith, and that, while among the more frank this divergence is not concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more dangerous secession, private and unacknowledged. So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can neither be treated with contempt nor

GREEK MYTHOLOGY. No spectacle can be presented to the thoughtful mind more solemn, more mournful, than that of the dying of an ancient religion, which in its day has given consolation to many generations of men. Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Greece was fast outgrowing her ancient faith. Her philosophers, in their studies of the world, had been profoundly impressed with the contrast between the majesty of the operations of Nature and the worthlessness of the divinities of Olympus. He

IN a political sense, Christianity is the bequest of the Roman Empire to the world. At the epoch of the transition of Rome from the republican to the imperial form of government, all the independent nationalities around the Mediterranean Sea had been brought under the control of that central power. The conquest that had befallen them in succession had been by no means a disaster. The perpetual wars they had maintained with each other came to an end; the miseries their conflicts had engendered we

THE policy of the Byzantine court had given to primitive Christianity a paganized form, which it had spread over all the idolatrous populations constituting the empire. There had been an amalgamation of the two parties. Christianity had modified paganism, paganism had modified Christianity. The limits of this adulterated religion were the confines of the Roman Empire. With this great extension there had come to the Christian party political influence and wealth. No insignificant portion of the v

"IN the course of my long life," said the Khalif Ali, "I have often observed that men are more like the times they live in than they are like their fathers." This profoundly philosophical remark of the son-in-law of Mohammed is strictly true; for, though the personal, the bodily lineaments of a man may indicate his parentage, the constitution of his mind, and therefore the direction of his thoughts, is determined by the environment in which he lives. When Amrou, the lieutenant of the Khalif Omar

THE pagan Greeks and Romans believed that the spirit of man resembles his bodily form, varying its appearance with his variations, and growing with his growth. Heroes, to whom it had been permitted to descend into Hades, had therefore without difficulty recognized their former friends. Not only had the corporeal aspect been retained, but even the customary raiment. THE SOUL. The primitive Christians, whose conceptions of a future life and of heaven and hell, the abodes of the blessed and the sin

I HAVE now to present the discussions that arose respecting the third great philosophical problem—the nature of the world. An uncritical observation of the aspect of Nature persuades us that the earth is an extended level surface which sustains the dome of the sky, a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters beneath; that the heavenly bodies—the sun, the moon, the stars—pursue their way, moving from east to west, their insignificant size and motion round the motionless earth proclaimin

THE true position of the earth in the universe was established only after a long and severe conflict. The Church used whatever power she had, even to the infliction of death, for sustaining her ideas. But it was in vain. The evidence in behalf of the Copernican theory became irresistible. It was at length universally admitted that the sun is the central, the ruling body of our system; the earth only one, and by no means the largest, of a family of encircling planets. Taught by the issue of that

"WHAT is truth?" was the passionate demand of a Roman procurator on one of the most momentous occasions in history. And the Divine Person who stood before him, to whom the interrogation was addressed, made no reply—unless, indeed, silence contained the reply. Often and vainly had that demand been made before—often and vainly has it been made since. No one has yet given a satisfactory answer. When, at the dawn of science in Greece, the ancient religion was disappearing like a mist at sunrise, the

Two interpretations may be given of the mode of government of the world. It may be by incessant divine interventions, or by the operation of unvarying law. To the adoption of the former a priesthood will always incline, since it must desire to be considered as standing between the prayer of the votary and the providential act. Its importance is magnified by the power it claims of determining what that act shall be. In the pre Christian (Roman) religion, the grand office of the priesthood was the

LATIN Christianity is responsible for the condition and progress of Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. We have now to examine how it discharged its trust. It will be convenient to limit to the case of Europe what has here to be presented, though, from the claim of the papacy to superhuman origin, and its demand for universal obedience, it should strictly be held to account for the condition of all mankind. Its inefficacy against the great and venerable religions of Southern and Eas

EUROPE, at the epoch of the Reformation, furnishes us with the result of the influences of Roman Christianity in the promotion of civilization. America, examined in like manner at the present time, furnishes us with an illustration of the influences of science. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION. In the course of the seventeenth century a sparse European population had settled along the western Atlantic coast. Attracted by the cod-fishery of Newfoundland, the French had a little colony north of the St. La

PREDOMINANCE OF CATHOLICITY. No one who is acquainted with the present tone of thought in Christendom can hide from himself the fact that an intellectual, a religious crisis is impending. In all directions we see the lowering skies, we hear the mutterings of the coming storm. In Germany, the national party is arraying itself against the ultramontane; in France, the men of progress are struggling against the unprogressive, and in their contest the political supremacy of that great country is well