THE CHRISTIAN'S SPEAR.

COURAGE.-VALOUR.

"All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand Banners rise into the air
With orient colours waving: with them rose
A forest huge of Spears; and thronging Helms
Appeared, and serried Shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable.

Him thus intent, Ithuriel with his Spear
Touched lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper, but returns

Of force to its own likeness."

MILTON.

Historical Notice.

SPEARS, as offensive weapons, are as ancient and as universal as the shield is for defence. In fact, these two seem, of all others, to be the most general of offensive and defensive arms. The origin of a Spear is very easily traced. A stick sharpened at one end, and hardened in the fire, was probably the first Spear, and continues to be the only offensive weapon of some

savages. Attention would, of course, be directed to the improvement of its point, in order to render it a more complete instrument of destruction; and, for this purpose, horn, fish-bone, flints, etc. were employed, as they still are by the rude people to whom the use of metals is unknown. Brass, or rather copper, was no doubt the first metal used for this and other purposes, and it continued to be employed long after the use of iron was known. The epithet "brazen" is continually applied to Spears in Homer; and we might almost suspect that they were wholly of brass, were it not probable that he merely intended to describe them as having the head and heel of that metal, the wooden shaft being also perhaps covered or decorated with it. It seems certain, at all events, that the Spear-heads were of brass; for all those that are not simply mentioned as "brazen Spears" are, with some variety of expression, like that of Teucer,

"Rough-grained, acuminated, sharp with brass."

Even the gods in Homer are furnished with brazen Spears. Herodotus, in speaking of the Massagetæ, tells us that their Spears, the points of their arrows, and their battle-axes, were of brass. From this it is clear that the whole was of brass, or covered with brass, else he would have said, as well of the Spears, as of the arrows, that they were headed with that metal. Such seem to have been known to the Hebrews, since the Spear is, in the Hebrew poetry, sometimes called, as in Homer, the "glittering Spear," which seems to imply, that something more than the head was of polished metal. Indeed, the lance which Goliath