its main entrance, and the very stones that marked the startingpoint and the goal. Formerly no specimen of the ancient Greek town-house or Council Hall was known to exist; but in the newly discovered Olympian Buleuterion we have a structure unique in its kind, dating from the earliest times. The Macedonian epoch is well represented by the rotunda of King Philip, and the period of Alexander's successors by the columns which supported the effigies of the Ptolemies. On all sides are seen Roman reconstructions of Grecian edifices, and we can clearly distinguish, e. g., in the temple of Zeus, Roman restorations, from the workmen's marks. The building erected by Herodes Atticus is wholly original in its combination of a water reservoir with an exedra and two projecting round temples. Of special interest, as regards the temples and temple-like buildings, is the fact that here the terra-cotta ornamentation remains in an excellent state of preservation, and is represented in a great number of specimens.

Above all, much light is thrown upon the relations of architecture and sculpture. Instance, the rilievo groups in limestone that filled the pediment of the Megarean treasury-a work of antique art belonging to an earlier period than the Æginetan pediment. Instance again, the metopes of the temple of Zeus, some of them very well preserved. These sculptures are in the transition style, and are fit companion-pieces for the metopes of the so-called temple of Theseus at Athens. Finally, there are the colossal groups on both pediments of the temple of Zeus. The artistic restoration of these works and their scientific discussion will for a long time give occupation to archæologists; at the same time our knowledge of Hellenic temple architecture will be established on a new basis.

In addition to all this, we have acquired a vast amount of fresh material for the history of art. The Nikè of Paionios, with its pedestal and inscription set up by the Messenians, and now found in its ancient place, is one of the most remarkable works of the old sculptors, grand and bold in design, masterly in execution, and of the highest significance for the development of the Nikè type: it is a new and striking monument of the plastic art of the fifth century B. C. The fourth century is represented in the Hermes of Praxiteles, discovered in the temple of Hera: this is the first original work of that sculptor, who is confessedly the foremost master of sculpture in marble. Further, it is the best preserved work of classic art that we have, and henceforth it will form the groundwork of all disquisitions upon the art of the fourth century. This

one work abundantly repays the expense and labor of five years, even had nothing else been found. But, further, the Attic art of Roman times is here represented in many noteworthy monuments, and the tradition of art history receives many essential additions. Masters whose names have long been known, as Ageladas, Pythag oras, Glaukia, Nikon, Polykletos, Daidalos, Naukydes, Paionios, are now for the first time brought before us in monuments dating from their own period; while many a great artist, before unknown, now emerges from obscurity. So, too, of the mode of erecting antique monuments we have many examples: we see the various forms of pedestals, their arrangement, and their inscriptions both in prose and poetry.

Finally, we see how the ancients employed different materials in their works. In the lowest strata we find quantities of bronze figures which, as being the votive offerings of poor folk, are rudely fashioned images of men and heroes, but still they are of value, as evidence of a primitive art industry. There are other bronzes that possess artistic merit; these exhibit the most ancient styles of ornamentation in lines scratched on the surface, or in hammered basreliefs. A very interesting specimen of this class of objects is a well-preserved plaque in rilievo exhibiting, in four successive fields, two animal groups-the pursuit of the Centaurs by Herakles, and a winged Artemis as a lion-tamer. In this work we see the dependence of Grecian upon Assyrian art, and at the same time the beginning of its emancipation. The work belongs to the seventh or the eighth century B. C.

In Elis, where marble is scarce, bronze and terra-cotta were of special importance. We find terra-cotta figures of the most primitive kind, also terra-cotta statues of the fifth century. Stone, too, of inferior quality was employed-limestone, which was artificially colored. A good deal of material has been collected having a bearing on the polychromy of ancient architecture and plastic art.

It is a mighty labor that has been imposed upon science by these five years of research at Olympia: the scholars and the lovers of art in every land where Grecian culture is prized will have a part in accomplishing it. ERNST CURTIUS.

RATIONAL SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

THE first thing to be said about the observance of the Sabbath is that, among Christians, there is no Sabbath to be observed. When people talk about the Sabbath, they are, for the time being, Jews. Only in England and America, among the descendants of the Puritans, and only in religious phraseology, is Sunday called the Sabbath. Somehow, in this country, it is supposed to be a little more religious to say "the Sabbath" when Sunday is meant. A man, in speaking to his neighbor in the street, says, "Sunday," but in speaking to his minister he says, "the Sabbath." I should like to send these Sabbatarians to Italy, where the name of Saturday is "Il Sabbato" and that of Sunday "Il Domenico." If, in that country, they advertised their meetings for "the Sabbath," as they do here, they would find that every one who came would come on Saturday.

This is more than a question of words. When a certain portion of the Christian Church constructed the theory that the fourth commandment was of perpetual obligation, only that the observance of the Sabbath had been transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, their object was to give a sacred obligation to the performance of certain ceremonial duties, and to make of Sunday-worship a kind of sacrament. This has been taught and accepted among the descendants of the Puritans down to the present time. Men have abstained from their common labors, and have attended public worship, because they regarded this as a religious duty, done not for their own benefit but in obedience to a divine command. And no doubt this theory of Sunday observance was well adapted to cause a universal and strict obedience to what God was believed to command or to forbid on this day. When we speak of God's day, God's house, and God's Word, we give an authority to Sabbath-keeping, Church-going, and Bible-reading, which

they would not otherwise possess. Take away that authority, let it be understood that we go to church for our own sake and not to please the Almighty, and that we have a right to do anything on Sunday which rests and refreshes body and soul, and no doubt there will be a great falling away from what is called "the religious observance of the Sabbath."

This may be a bad thing, or it may not; but, whether the results of telling the truth seem to be good or bad, the truth ought to be told. Yet, when the Lord's day is placed on its true foundation, it will probably be better kept than it is now. The people of New England have been trained up in the belief that Sunday was the Sabbath, and that God has commanded it to be kept holy At first, and for a long time, the result of this teaching was, that every one abstained from work and amusement, and every one who was able went to church or meeting. But this is not the case now, even in New England. The statistics of church-going show that only a small part of the community, at least in large towns, attend public worship, and that to many it is a day of idleness or of pure amusement. The old belief in the Sunday as the equivalent of the Sabbath is gone, and can not be restored. Would it not be better to put it on another and better foundation; to elevate it from a Jewish to a Christian institution; to show that it only becomes God's day by being man's day? If this is true, it will be sure to be also useful; for the truth is a tree which always brings forth good fruits.

Scholars are now generally agreed that the Sabbath obligation was not transferred by Christ or his apostles to the first day; that there is not in the Christian Scriptures a single command to keep the Sabbath in any form or on any day; and that nearly all that is there said about the Sabbath is to deny its obligation. Jesus himself openly and repeatedly violated not only the Pharisaic Sabbath, but that of Moses. When reproved for it, he did not defend himself on the ground that he was not breaking the Mosaic Sabbath, but rather because he had a right to work on that day as the Son of man, the representative of humanity. He did not say, "The Son of God is Lord of the Sabbath," but "The Son of man is master of the Sabbath, since it was made for the good of man." It is also noticeable that he took away the very foundation of the Jewish Sabbath as a positive religious ordinance, by denying that God ever rests. "My Father works hitherto [down to this time, always], and I work." Jesus plainly taught that the mode of observing

even the Jewish Sabbath was to be determined by human uses; that whatever was really good for man might be done on that day. It is not necessary to quote the passages in which Paul expressly denies the binding obligation of the Jewish Sabbath. The latest authority (Smith's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities ") says that St. Paul's words (Coloss. ii, 16, 17) are "absolutely decisive," as well as those addressed to the Galatians (Gal. iv, 10), that "the obligation to observe the Sabbath according to the Jewish law was never, in any sense, binding on Christians." The writer of this article (Rev. Alfred Barry, D. D., Principal of King's College, London, and Canon of Worcester) also says: "The notion of a formal substitution, by apostolic authority, of the Lord's day for the Jewish Sabbath, and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritualized form, of the Sabbatical obligation established by the promulgation of the fourth commandment, has no basis whatever, either in Holy Scripture or in Christian antiquity." He adds that "the idea afterward embodied in the title of 'the Christian Sabbath,' and carried out in ordinances of Judaic rigor, was, so far as we can see, entirely unknown in the early centuries of Christianity."

No doubt, the belief was constant that all that was divine in the law was fulfilled in the gospel. But no one supposed that the Sabbath of the law was fulfilled by another outward Sabbath of a seventh-day's rest. The outward rest of the Jewish Sabbath was fulfilled in the gospel by an inward rest of the soul, resting from anxious effort in a confident faith. This is the only Christian Sabbath mentioned in the New Testament. The only place where Sabbath-keeping is spoken of except to be condemned, is in the Epistle to the Hebrews (iv, 9) where it is said that "there remains a Sabbath-keeping to the people of God." But the context shows that this Sabbath-keeping is the spiritual rest of the soul, which belongs not to one day but to all days. The idea of the Christian Sabbath is not the celebration of any particular day, but a rest from spiritual anxiety and struggle. This idea prevails in the writings of all the early Church fathers. Athanasius says, “We keep no Sabbath-day, but look forward to the Sabbath of Sabbaths in heaven." Epiphanius says the Jews have their "little Sabbath," but we our great Sabbath," which is "rest from our sins." St. Jerome affirms that "all days are the same to a Christian." St. Augustine plainly declares that there is no obligation on a Christian to keep any Sabbath. In Christianity, he says, "the observation of that kind of Sabbath which consists in the rest of a single day