It thus appears that the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil is literally an application and variation of Sibylline materials, probably drawn from the Third Book of the Oracles, in consequence of the manifest introduction of the ideas of the Scriptural prophets, but not necessarily indicating thereby the actual identity of the Cumaan, Erythræan, and Hebrew Sibyls. From the general current of our investigations it may be safely inferred that all the earlier Sibyls exhibited only different versions and slightly dissimilar modifications of the same original text or collection of texts; and that the later editions which have descended to us, underwent numerous successive revisions, additions, purgations, and alterations, to adapt them to the use of different ages or different parties, until, their treacherous character being finally suspected in the fourth and fifth centuries, they gradually sunk into comparative oblivion, to be at length gathered up into their present collected form by the pious charity of the writer of the preface discovered by Antimaco.* But, at whatever period they ceased to be botched and tinkered by every fanatical volunteer, we do not believe that a century of lines can anywhere be found consecutively, which exist now in the same state in which they came from the hands of their Jewish editors to go no further back. If, therefore, it be impracticable to determine the exact dates and fortunes of the different component parts of this trading stock of oracles, we can at any rate discern the general agencies, both psychological and historical, which have produced the variety of our present books, their discrepancies, and dissimilarities, and have also given to them the motley and incongruous character which they display. The superior antiquity of the Third Book is not inferred singly from the pointed reference to Ptolemy Philometor, but may be confirmed by much intrinsic evidence, and especially by a larger, more uniform, and more consistent employment of Homeric locution and the Homeric rhythm than belongs to any of the other books. We would venture to suggest that perhaps the most ancient ingredient in the whole collection, excluding the warning to Camarina, as not being of Sibylline origin, is the passage in the Twelfth Book, already referred to: Αἱ μέλεοι Κέκροπες, καὶ Δαύλιοι, ἠδὲ Λάκωνες, * τοὺς ἐπιλεγομένους Σιβυλλιακούς χρησμους, σποράδην εὑρισκομένους καὶ συγκεχτ évovç. Orac. Sib., ed. Friedl., pt. ii, p. 2. † Orac. Sibyll., lib. xii, vv. 214–218. This may not be Sibylline, but it can scarcely have been written after the Messenian wars. The latest passage of historical character or oracular pretension is in our opinion in the Eleventh Book: Αἱ ὀπόσοι φεύξονται ἀπ' ἀντολίης γεγαῶτες σὺν κτεάτεσσιν ἐοῖσιν ἐς ἀλλοθρόους ἀνθρώπους· In verse 105 we detect a distinct allusion to the capture of Rome by Genseric, though Friedlieb would probably apply it to some obscure or doubtful event under Gallienus; but the lines which we have quoted, though they may be applied, on the authority of Herodian, to the reign of Septimus Severus, are applicable only to the condition of the Roman empire under Theodosius, as described by Priscus Panita in his colloquy with the Roman emigrant, or under Justinian, as illustrated by Procopius. We have not nearly exhausted our memoranda and materials, nor given adequate development to our views; but we have exhausted our paper, and our own as well as our reader's patience; and may, therefore, conclude by referring those who desire other, further, or more minute information to Alexandre's valuable notes, and Friedlieb's elaborate introduction, having used their assistance but slightly and incidentally ourselves, while endeavouring to pursue our own explorations by new methods, and into wider fields. It was our design to have added a new list of our own to Volkmann's catalogue of metrical rectifications. He has left much for the gleaners who may succeed him; and the task of correction is often easy enough by obvious changes. But we have occupied so much time already that we are obliged to forego our intention, which we do the more willingly, as the labour is thankless and profitless in itself; and, after the endless corruptions, deliberate and accidental, which these oracles have experienced on numerous occasions, it would seem as unnecessary as it would be to file down Mother Goose's melodies to the polish of Pope's versification. We are not certain but that all that is to be learnt from the Sibylline Oracles may be most readily gathered from them in their sluttish and mutilated state as exhibited in the MSS. Their rugged wretchedness is more suggestive than they would be in a more purified form. They are the tattered remnants of an ignorant, bigoted, superstitious, and often fraudulent phase of declining civilization; and the Sibyls who pro Orac. Sibyll., lib. xi, vv. 113-118. fess to be coëtaneous with the birth of antiquity,* and contemporary with Noah,† deserve to be lapidated at its close, according to the sentence and prayer put forth by one of them on her own behalf.‡ Βάλοιτέ με, βάλλετε πάντες· ART. II.-PUBLIC PRAYER. PRAYER goes back of mere speech-it exists amid the felt emotions of the soul. To every man there are two worlds of immediate interest the world of outward facts and events, and the world of inward thoughts and emotions. The first is concrete and tangible; the second, in a sense, abstract, and with difficulty explained. Knowledge of the first is obtained by observation, analysis, and induction; while the second can be perfectly known only to individual consciousness. Now, as in the first, at the creation, the Spirit of God moved, separating light from darkness, land from flood, and order from general chaos; so in the second, at the new creation, the spirit of prayer, which is, in some sense, but another form of expression for the Spirit of God, moved, separating the light of hope from the darkness of despair, the grounds of peace from the floods of anxiety and remorse, and the order and beauty of holiness from the general chaos of depravity. And, furthermore, as in the outward Orac. Sibyll., lib. iii, v. 813. She calls herself the Erythræan Sibyl, daughter of Gnostos and Circe, a statement which must be late and fraudulent, as not agreeing with geography, mythology, or the testimony of antiquity, and indicating Oriental influences by the name of her father. In lib. v, v. 53, a late book, she is the sister of Isis, a declaration probably ancient, and borrowed from the old Egyptian Sibyl. † Orac. Sibyll., lib. i, v. 288. She is the daughter-in-law of Noah; and the same is again asserted, lib. iii, v. 826, which must have been in the latter book a Jewish addition to their heathen materials, and is at variance with the previous allegation of her parentage. Orac. Sibyll., lib. vii, vv. 150–162. In this passage, besides incidents obviously imitated from the Cassandra of Eschylus, there is a confused reference to the tradition which represented the younger Erythræan Sibyl as indiscriminately the wife, sister, and daughter of Apollo. Pausan. Phocic., p. 327. We may mention here, what we have had no suitable opportunity of mentioning in the text, that the Jewish expectation of an actual restoration to Jerusalem is, in the main, a Sibylline idea, derived originally from the Jewish colony at Alexandria under the Ptolemies, but adopted and repeated in the Sibylline Oracles. world there is a continual, absolute necessity for the presence and agency of the Spirit and power of God to preserve and to develop the creation, so also in the inner world is there a like necessity for the presence and agency of the spirit of prayer, in order to the preservation and development of the new creation. In order to a successful cultivation and ripening of those blessed fruits, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," there must be unceasing prayer and universal thanksgiving. It was thus with the ancient worthies. Hannah's lips did not move, yet "she spake in her heart unto the Lord." David interprets the same active inner state when he says, "My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is." It was enjoined by our Saviour when "he spake a para-, ble unto them, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;" and also by the Holy Ghost, through Paul, when he exhorted the brethren to "continue in prayer, and watch thereunto with thanksgiving." They who cry day and night unto him are termed, preeminently, "God's own elect." When the disciples were under the most powerful dispensation of the Holy Ghost, namely, on the day of Pentecost, it is said that "they continued steadfastly in prayer." The pious and accepted Cornelius "prayed to God always;" by which we are to understand that he continually maintained an inward frame of active devotion. When men thus live, Satan comes and has nothing in them; duty calls, and they are always ready for its performance; troubles break in, but are not able to overwhelm; persecutions bear down, and the soul maintains its integrity; public calamities rage and dangers threaten, but no fear is realized; death comes, and is welcomed with joy. They are like the earth in its orbit, guided by a central power, illuminated by a central light, and carrying everywhere a circumambient atmosphere with a life-giving and refreshing influence." 66 But though in its elementary existence and fundamental exercise prayer exists back of speech, yet God has ordained that it shall often break forth in overt supplications. Hence the command, "Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." This obligation was recognised as binding in the most ancient times. It is not an arbitrary command, unaccompanied by reasons and encouragements. It is founded upon the necessity of personal communion with God, and upon that great privilege conferred by religion upon man, of making his requests known unto God in everything. And the encouragement consists in this, that God is in his retirement; he is there to bless and to cause his face to shine upon him; "he seeth in secret;" he enters into his case, and penetrates the meaning of silent desires and sighs as well as words, which have no need of loud utterance to enter into his ears. And he openly rewards all such as practise this secret duty in a right spirit. We have not, indeed, to direct us, a "thus saith the Lord" respecting the exercise of FAMILY PRAYER. None of the inspired penmen have in so many words commanded that the family shall be collected, morning and evening, around a domestic altar for the purpose of reading the Scriptures and prayer to God. But what is the inference? That there is no such obligation resting upon man? Certainly not; for it is plain that if such an inference were to be admitted as just, then, because there is in the Bible no express command to feed, clothe, and educate children, it might with equal justice be inferred that no such obligations exist, which every one knows is not the case. He that in these temporal things "provides not for his own house, denies the faith, and is worse than an infidel;" while that professed Christian who refuses, by readings, instructions, and prayers, to provide for the spiritual wants of his house, proves eminently reckless to a powerfully-felt obligation, and is worse than a heathen. The object of PUBLIC PRAYER is threefold; namely, to honour the great Master of Assemblies; to call into exercise the devotional feelings of the congregation; and, lastly, to secure that divine influence, without which the preached word is inevitably lost, like "water spilled upon the ground." If this statement be correct, then how many are our shortcomings! How few there are who bring "beaten oil" into the sanctuary! What odours of strange fires are smelled by the Lord of Sabaoth! There are two extremes in public prayer. He who falls into the first is indifferent; he who adopts the other is extravagant. The one coldly performs his so-called prayer in dull monotony; the other rushes into the awful presence of God literally “as the unthinking horse rushes into battle." If the first wearies us by his soulless formality, the second alarms us by his excesses of language, voice, and manner. Furthermore, we have heard some ministers confess and bewail so many and such malignant crimes, that we were almost ready to conclude that the services of a civil magistrate were needed. This might have arisen from pure humility; but surely such language, such berating of the first person, both singular and plural, better becomes the closet than the sacred desk and the ears of a promiscuous congregation. Again, it would seem, from |