established expressly for the study and advancement of the German language. Opinions and statements are to be met with in history, which have been originally introduced from a certain external probability, and which, having once succeeded in obtaining admission, claim a prescriptive right to the place they have usurped, although owing it solely to misconception. To this class, belongs Charlemagne's academy. Charles, as well as his learned friends, are mentioned in the writings of that period under assumed names, from which it has been inferred, that some literary society or academy existed at the French court, in which, as in modern times, the members adopted some name according to their fancy or their partiality for this or that author. Fixed rules, and a distinct object, to attain which all the members labor in common, are necessary to constitute an academy; but no allusion is made to a society of that description, either in contemporary works, or the letters of Alcuin, who had ample opportunity of mentioning the fact, and was, of all men, least likely to omit doing so. The assumed names in no way refer to a literary society, unless a meaning be assigned to them belonging to the habits of a later period, rather than to what was customary and possible in the days of Charlemagne. It is, however, only necessary to have read Alcuin's works with attention, to discover, that, from his predilection for allegory, he often bestowed names on his friends in jest, which, from their appropriateness remained attached to them in earnest, and became affixed to their real names as surnames, as, for example, Rabanus Maurus. The signification which has been attributed to them, is proved to be erroneous by the circumstance, that not only one surname was given them, but two, and even three, which varied with the circumstances to which they referred. So king Charles is usually called David, but many times, also, Solomon. As, in those days, historical references were chiefly derived from the Old Testament, so, on the one hand, nothing could be more flattering than a comparison with him who was peculiarly the founder of the Jewish kingdom, the brave, the single-minded, devout son of Jesse; and, on the other, with his successor, famed alike for his magnificence and his intelligence, and who, in the middle ages, was honored as the type of spiritual wisdom. Alcuin himself was called Flaccus and Albinus; the former, probably for the same reason as procured the name to the Latin poet, or because he was particularly partial to Horace, whose lyric verse he imitated in the judgment of his contemporaries, not without success; the latter appellation is manifestly a mere accommodation of his Anglo-Saxon name to the euphony of the Latin tongue. Amongst others, the two brothers, Adelhard and Wala, had double surnames; the former was called Antoninus and Augustinus, the latter Arsenius and Jeremiah. Einhard, the private secretary and biographer of Charlemagne, is a striking instance of the reason why, and the way in which, these names were given. He was a mathematician, and skilled in architecture, for which reason, Alcuin calls him, after the Jewish architect, of whom mention is made in the books of Moses, Bezaleel. We may, therefore, venture to affirm that this pretended academy is a mere fiction, without in any way detracting from the renown of Charles, whose zeal in the cause of literature is proved by too many splendid examples to need the aid of such suspicious evidence."

Alcuin's first object, after he became abbot at Tours, was to establish a school in that monastery. The monks at that time were extremely uncultivated, and were more devoted to agriculture than to letters. Alcuin was a schoolman; and he who always had the air of a pedagogue, could not fail in present circumstances to make instruction his first and chief business. Whatever were the difficulties he had to encounter in the rude habits of his new charge,—and of this history has left us no particular account, he succeeded in drawing the hand from the plough and the vine-dresser's knife, to the parchment and to the pen of the copier. The learning and abilities of the teacher, and the order and zeal of the pupils, soon rendered this a celebrated school, second only to that of the court. Alcuin, who in early life had been accustomed to the use of good libraries, felt nothing so painfully as the scarcity of books in the empire. He therefore procured a royal commission for some of his own pupils to go to England to purchase a library, "that these invaluable fruits of wisdom," to use his own language, "might be transplanted into France, and flourish in the garden of Tours as luxuriantly as at York." These works were industriously copied at Tours, by the monks, and distributed in many parts of the kingdom; so that one library was, by the multiplication of copies, converted into many. By means of Alcuin's taste and accuracy, the manuscripts of this age became much more elegant and valuable than those of preceding times. He substituted the small Roman character in place of the pointed Merovingian letter, which not only facilitated the labor of copying, but increased the neatness of the execution.

But we must not infer from these particulars, that the improvements made were limited to mechanical skill. Many of the scholars of the highest distinction in the next century, were educated in the school of St. Martin at Tours. Thus the literary men of the empire, both in that age and the succeeding, were more or less nearly associated with Alcuin. Paulinus, bishop of Aquilea, Theodulph, bishop of Orleans, and Benedict, of Anian, who revived the order of Benedictines, were his associates. Wizo, or Candidus, as he was also called, Alcuin's successor at court, Fredigis, who afterwards became his successor at Tours, and Sigulf, abbot of Ferriere, had

been his disciples at York, and accompanied him as assistants into France. Arno, archbishop of Salzburg, Angilbert, prime minister of Pepin in Italy, Adelhard, abbot of Corbie, Wala, his brother and successor, Richbad, archbishop of Treves, and many other distinguished literary men and ecclesiastics, were his immediate disciples in France. Einhard, the celebrated biographer of Charlemagne, Agobard, Rabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda, under whom this school rivalled and finally eclipsed that of Tours, Hatto, who succeeded Maurus on his becoming archbishop of Mentz, and Haimo, bishop of Halberstadt, though they belonged in their public character to the next generation, were all educated at the monastery of St. Martin, under Alcuin.

Alcuin died at Tours, on the 19th of May, 804. His remains are deposited in the church of St. Martin, "and an epitaph, written by himself, and engraved on a copper plate, points out his resting-place to posterity."

We will close this notice with a few extracts from the biography, on the personal appearance and character of Alcuin:

"A painting was once preserved in the abbey of Einsideln, which is said to be a portrait of Alcuin. It exhibits a German face, with coarse harsh features, in which the austerities of monkish piety are visible. The individual is represented in an attitude the most appropriate to his calling and character, that of serious reflection, apparently upon theological subjects. The gloomy countenance, the wrinkled brow, and the compressed lips, indicate not that spiritual and enthusiastic devotion which fills the soul with rapture, and diffuses over the outward features a ray of the joy which beams within; but profound meditation upon some abstruse subject. But when we, in imagination, behold the furrowed brow smoothed, when we fancy the individual before us, unclosing his lips to communicate, with a delight that illumines his melancholy eye, the discovery of the looked-for result, we can discern in these harsh features, that good-nature and kind-heartedness which Alcuin must have possessed, to gain, in the degree which he certainly acquired, the esteem and affection of an immense number of persons whom he had attached to him in the course of his life and instruction. His eyes then sparkle with that intellectual vivacity which he evinced in many of his writings, especially in his polemical works. Nothing but the traces of mortification and penance will then remind us, that we are gazing on a priest, who sought by abstinence to gain admittance into the kingdom of heaven.

"In the portrait of Alcuin, we may discern the leading features of his character. His whole mind had a religious and moral bias. These characteristic features are perceptible in every relation of his life. As the counsellor of a powerful monarch, he endeavored to procure for

morality, and the prevailing religion, an influence upon legislation, quite foreign to its purpose. Laws do not prescribe virtuous sentiments; they produce and encourage them, only in so far as they repress evil. The manner in which Alcuin sought to make the Bible the basis of judicial decisions, and to deduce the legal appointments of private persons from moral principles, is demonstrated by a fragment amongst his writings, in which he seems to have communicated to Charlemagne his opinions upon the right of inheritance.

"The same characteristic features distinguish him as a teacher. His endeavors were directed not so much to cultivate the understanding, still less the taste, as to improve the heart, and induce his pupils to pursue a moral and Christian course. He belonged to that class of persons, of whom Schiller says, that they enjoy a serious and pathetic poem like a sermon, and one which is naive or witty, like an intoxicating draught, who are so destitute of taste, as to desire to be edified by a tragedy or an epic poem, and are shocked at an ode of Anacreon or Catullus. To this is to be attributed the dislike which he exhibited in his latter years to the Latin poets, and his severity against a partiality for dramatic representations. For, in his more advanced life, in accordance with the character above described, he regarded every thing only with reference to its fitness for improving the moral sense, or its tendency to have a dangerous effect upon the passions.

"In him, every thing received a religious hue; all the sciences, with him, ranged themselves under the banner of religion, and formed a rampart to defend theology from the attacks of heretics and scoffers. He wished to rear a second Athens in France-but a Christian Athens. The schools established according to his plan, are, therefore, now commended by many persons, on the very principle on which others might be inclined to censure them; namely, that they were confined to religion, and intended only to educate good Christians. Alcuin's character was adapted to the necessities of his times, and as he had only to pursue the direction in which the natural current of events was flowing, he was enabled to accomplish his projects with the greater facility and success. In reviewing his character in the various relations of his life, the first thing that strikes us as being inconsistent with it, is the nature of a life at court. Not that he wanted ability to conduct himself with propriety in every station. His letters to Charlemagne are admirable specimens of his skill in paying an elegant compliment without being a flatterer, and of the agreeable mode in which he could offer instruction or reproof, without displaying that presumption and self-complacency, into which a preceptive or admonitory style is so easily betrayed. But the bustle of a court was as little compatible with his love of tranquillity, as the din of arms with his peaceful studies; and his admiration of Charlemagne proves that he did not possess that versatility of talent, which was requisite to satisfy the demands of the state and of science; and that he would have been overwhelmed in the boisterous element of public life. Although, in his intercourse with Charles, and in the education of the royal family and the young French nobility, he found even at court, a soil so far congenial to his nature, as to admit of his producing much valuable fruit, still the interruptions to which he was exposed were so disagreeable to him, that he longed for some abode where he might dwell in peace, and when he had once found it, he would never consent to exchange it for the court."

ARTICLE IV.

THE MORAL LIKENESS OF MEN CONTEMPLATED AS A GROUND OF ENCOURAGEMENT IN MISSIONARY LABORS.

BY REV. ROBERT W. CUSHMAN, PASTOR OF THE BOWDOIN SQUARE CHURCH, BOSTON.*

CHRISTIANITY was designed for the world. Its founder came a light to the Gentiles, as well as to be the glory of Israel. Although, as to his personal ministry, he was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, his commission to his disciples, when he had made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness, imposed the obligation to carry the glad tidings to the whole human race.

It is not among the least satisfactory of the evidences of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, that they harmonize with the real wants of mankind, and are fraught with blessings for every nation, age and clime; and that, too, while the proof is every where scattered over their pages, that the people through whom they were given were under the dominion of a spirit of Pharisaism, which would fain have confined the knowledge of Jehovah to themselves, or, at most, would have extended it to those only, of other nations, who should be willing to sue for it at the outer court of their temple. Yet the spirit of the Bible is expansive as the light, and comprehensive as the nature of man. Although the posterity of Abraham were marked for a distinct and peculiar people, it is every where seen that they were under the government of him who was "not the God of the Jews only, but the God of

* This article was delivered as an address before the Society for Missionary Inquiry in the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, Aug. 18, 1840. As the present is an important crisis in our missionary operations, and as it is to be feared that a just sense is not entertained of the necessity of vigorous and united efforts to sustain the missionary enterprise, no apology will be needed for publishing the address in its present form. It has been solicited from the author, and is now given to the public, in the hope that its peculiar character and mode of treatment will render it serviceable to the cause of missions at the present juncture.-ED.

VOL. VI. NO. XXIII.

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