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THE

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY

AND

CLASSICAL REVIEW.

THIRD SERIES, NO. III.—WHOLE NUMBER LIX.

JULY, 1845.

THE

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY

AND

CLASSICAL REVIEW.

THIRD SERIES, NO. III.—WHOLE NUMBER LIX.
JULY, 1845.

ARTICLE I.

THE INFLUENCE OF FAITH UPON INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER.

By Rev. C. B. BOYNTON, Troy, N. Y.

In this age, so far removed from the influence of ancient opinions, and among a people so eminently practical as we are, any allusion to a faith which controlled the nations twenty or thirty centuries ago, may appear like the pedantry of a school-boy, or at least, be considered an unwise attempt to draw off the mind from its active duties in the real world, to wander among the visions of one purely ideal.

A belief in the invisible has very little direct influence upon our nation. Indeed, Protestant Christendom yields but slightly to any impressions from the spiritual world.

This is a matter of fact era, and facts, with us, are such truths as can be tested by the senses. Whatever can be touched and seen and used moreover, for some profitable purpose, is allowed to have a real being. A railroad, or a steamboat, or a cotton-factory, or a bond and mortgage, or bank notes at par, or coin, they are veritable things. A man may

THIRD SERIES, VOL. I. NO. III.

26

believe in them and not be called a dreamer, or a fanatic; but whosoever will not shout, "these are thy gods, O Israel," is stared at as a relic of the stupid past.

If we were called upon to name the one great fact of modern times, the truth most interesting to all classes, we should mention "available funds" as decidedly, and without a rival, holding the first place in the human mind, the "zo xaλov" of these latter days.

Mammon and Philosophy have preached a crusade against all spiritual things, and they have well nigh hunted them from the earth. There are no fairies now to make their homes in the flower cups, to sleep under the shadow of a leaf, or to revel by moonlight on the green sward. The good genii have been banished, the witches have all been exorcised, and the land has rest. It was said of Cervantes, that he "smiled Spain's chivalry away." Thus Mammon and Philosophy have sneered out of existence that unseen world, which once presented so many wonders and beauties to the imagination of man.

Even the nurses have been compelled to invent new stories wherewith to frighten the young. The infant philosopher will smile in contempt at wizards and fairies, and speak of a ghost as an optical illusion.

It will be said, perhaps, this is well: the spirits which flitted in the twilight of paganism must of course be banished by the beams of true religion. It is well; blessed be our Redeemer for disenchanting the world.

But though we grant this, there still remains a question of deep importance to the present age. Are we not in danger of forgetting that the presence and power of that false system which once ruled the nations, demonstrate the existence of a spiritual world, which is not a falsehood, but a solemn and enduring reality? The counterfeit is the representative of the genuine coin.

In the eager and praiseworthy attempt to release the mind from the thraldom of the ancient superstition, have we not, in a measure, banished the false and the true together?

As the fantastic shapes of the Grecian mythology melted away, have we not forgotten the substance of which they were the distorted reflection?

In speaking of the influence of faith upon the intellect, we do not propose to confine our remarks to evangelical faith, but shall speak of that general belief, which links the soul to a spiritual world and binds it to an hereafter.

For our first illustration, we turn to that people with whose mental powers, with whose poetry, and eloquence, and excellence in the fine arts, and religious belief and institutions, every scholar is familiar-the Romans and the Greeks.

One of the most significant facts connected with the paganism of Greece and Rome is, that beneath its influence the intellect of man towered upward in more gigantic proportions than it has elsewhere reached on earth, with one single. exception. As an intellectual being man was then "soaring in his pride of place." In whatever depends simply upon the powers of the understanding, the Greek and Roman are accounted giants still.

If we would be charmed with those creations of poetry, which have their birth-place in the highest heaven of invention, we must ascend to those former times when an invocation to Calliope was something more than a classic formula; when the soul of the poet was under the full influence of a spell whose power over the world is gone. If we would be moved by an eloquence which cannot die while human nature endures, we must sit at the feet of those masters who lived before the light of Christianity streamed over the marbles of the Acropolis; before Paul had explained its principles to the Athenian Senate, or preached in the household of Cæsar.

In power and grandeur of thought, the philosophers of paganism have never been surpassed by uninspired men, and modern art has not been able to throw over the sculptured form that matchless grace which floats round even the mutilated fragments which Time has spared from Greece. These are significant facts, and it is certainly worthy of seri

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