only because the days then begin to shorten, and St. John had said, when speaking of Jesus Christ, "He must grow, and I must become less"-Oportet illum crescere, me autem minui. There is something very singular in the ancient ceremony of lighting a great fire on St. John's day, in the hottest period of the year. It has been said to be a very old custorn, originally designed to commemorate the ancient burning of the world, which awaited a second conflagration. The same writer assures us, that the feast of the Assumption is kept on the 15th of Angust, because the sun is then in the "You think that we conceal what we sign of the Virgin. He also certifies that adore, because we have neither temples St. Mathias' day is in the month of Fe-nor altars. But what shall we erect like brary, because he was, as it were, inter-to God, since man himself is God's tulated among the twelve Apostles, as a image? What temple shall we build for day is added to February every leap-year. him, when the whole world, which is the There would, perhaps, be something in work of his hands, cannot contain him? these astronomical imaginings to make our How shall we inclose the power of such Indian philosopher smile; nevertheless, majesty in one dwelling-place? Is it not the author of them was mathematical better to consecrate a temple to him in master to the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV., our minds and in our hearts?" and moreover, an engineer and a very worthy officer.

the third century. Addressing the Romans, he says

"Putatis autem nos occultare quod colimus, si delubra et aras non habemus. Quod enim simulacrum Deo fingam, quùm, si rectè existimes, sit Dei homo ipse simulacrum? quod templum ei ex struam, quùm totus hic mundus, ejus opere fabricatus, eum capere non possit? et quùm homo latiùs maneam, intrà unam ædiculum vim tantæ majestatis includam? nonnè meliùs in nostrà dedicandus est mente, in nostro imo consecrandus est pectore?"

ALTARS, TEMPLES, RITES,
SACRIFICES, &c.

The Christians, then, had no temples until about the commencement of the reign of Dioclesian. The Church had then become very numerous; and it was found necessary to introduce those decorations and rites which, at an earlier period, would have been useless and even dangerous to a slender flock, long despised, and considered as nothing more than a small sect of dissenting Jews.

It is universally acknowledged that the first Christians had neither temples, nor altars, nor tapers, nor incense, nor holy water, nor any of those rites which the prudence of pastors afterwards instituted, in conformity with times and places, but It is manifest that, while they were conmore especially with the various wants of founded with the Jews, they could not the faithful. obtain permission to erect temples. The We have ample testimony in Origen, Jews, who paid very dear for their synaAthenagoras, Theophilus, Justin, and Ter-gogues, would themselves have opposed tullian, that the primitive Christians held it; for they were mortal enemies to the temples and altars in abomination; and Christians, and they were rich. We must that, not merely because they could not not say, with Toland, that the Christians, in the beginning obtain permission from who at that time made a show of despisthe govemment to build temples, but be- ing temples and altars, were like the fox cause they had a real aversion for every that said the grapes were sour. thing which seemed to apply any affinity comparison appears as unjust as it is imwith other religions. This abhorrence pious, since all the primitive Christians, existed among them for two hundred and in so many different countries, agreed in fifty years, as is proved by the following maintaining that there was no need of passage of Minutius Felix, who lived in raising temples or altars to the true God.

This

Providence, acting by second causes, When the famous chief Debar was fightwilled that they should erect a splendiding in Syria against the generals of the temple at Nicomedia, the residence of the Emperor Heraclius, in the time of the Emperor Dioclesian, as soon as they had } Caliph Abubeker, successor to Mahomet, obtained that sovereign's protection. They Peter, who commanded at Damascus, built others in other cities; but still they took thither several women, whom he had had a horror of tapers, lustral water, pon- captured, together with some booty, in tifical habits, &c.; all this pomp and cir- one of his excursions; among the prisoncumstance was in their eyes no other than ers was the sister of Derar. Alvakedi's a distinctive mark of Paganism. These Arabian History, translated by Ockley, customs were adopted under Constantine says that she was a perfect beauty, and and his successors, and have frequently that Peter became enamoured of her, paid changed. great attention to her on the way, and indulged her and her fellow-prisoners with short marches. They encamped in an extensive plain, under tents, guarded by troops posted at a short distance. Caulah (so this sister of Derar's was named), proposed to one of her companions, called Oserra, that they should endeavour to escape from captivity, and persuaded her rather to die than be a victim to the lewd desires of the Christians. The same Mahometan enthusiasm seized all the women; they armed themselves with the ironpointed staves that supported their tents, and with a sort of dagger, which they wore in their girdles; they then formed a circle, as the cows do when they present their horns to attacking wolves. Peter only laughed at first; he advanced to

Our good women of the present day, who every Sunday hear a Latin mass, at which a little boy attends, imagine that this rite has been observed from the earliest ages-that there never was any other, and that the custom in other countries of assembling to offer up prayers to God in common, is diabolical and quite of recent origin. There is, undeniably, something very respectable in a mass, since it has been authorised by the Church; it is not at all an ancient usage, but is not the less entitled to our veneration.

There is not, perhaps, a single ceremony of this day which was in use in the time of the Apostles. The Holy Spirit has always conformed himself to the times. He inspired the first disciples in a mean apartment; he now communicates his in-wards the women, who gave him hard spirations in St. Peter's at Rome, which cost several millions-equally divine, however, in the wretched room, and in the superb edifice of Julius II., Leo X., Paul III., and Sixtus V.

AMAZONS.

blows with the staves; after hesitating for some time, he at length resolved to use force; the sabres of his men were already drawn, when Derar arrived, put the Greeks to flight, and delivered his sister and the other captives.

Nothing can more strongly resemble BOLD and vigorous women have been those times called heroic, sung by Homer. often seen to fight like men. History Here are the same single combats at the makes mention of such; for, without head of armies, the combatants frequently reckoning Semiramis, Thomyris, or Pen-holding a long conversation before they thesilea-who, perhaps, existed only in commence fighting: and this, no doubt, fable-it is certain that there were many justifies Homer. women in the armies of the first caliphs.

Thomas, governor of Syria, Heraclius's son-in-law, made a sally from Damascus, and attacked Sergiabil, having first prayed to Jesus Christ. "Unjust aggressor," said he to Sergiabil, "thou canst not resist Jesus, my God, who will fight for the

example of greater or more persevering courage in a woman.

champions of his religion." "Thou tell-
est an impious lie," answered Sergiabil; {
"Jesus is not greater before God than She had been preceded by the cele-
Adam. God raised him from the dust; {brated Countess De Montfort, in Brittany.
be gave life to him as to another man," This princess," says D'Argentré, was
and, after leaving him for some time on virtuous beyond the nature of her sex, and
the earth, took him up into heaven." valiant beyond all men; she mounted her
After some more verbal skirmishing, the horse, and managed him better than any
fight began. Thomas discharged an arrow, esquire; she fought hand to hand, or
which wounded young Aban, the son of charged a troop of armed men like the
Saib, by the side of the valiant Sergiabil; most valiant captain; she fought on sea
Aban fell and expired; the news of his and land with equal bravery," &c. She
death reached his young wife, to whom went, sword in hand, through her states,
he had been united but a few days before; which were invaded by her competitor,
she neither wept nor complained, but ran Charles de Blois. She not only sustained
to the field of battle, with a quiver at her two assaults, armed cap-à-pie, in the
back, and a couple of arrows in her hand; breach of Hennebon, but she made a
with the first of these she killed the sortie with five hundred men, attacked the
Christian standard-bearer; and the Arabs enemy's camp, set fire to it, and reduced
seed the trophy, crying, Allah achar! it to ashes.
with the other she shot Thomas in the eye,
and he retired, bleeding into the town.
Arabian history is full of similar exam-
ples, but they do not tell us that these
warlike women burned their right breast,
that they might draw the bow better, nor
that they lived without men; on the con-
ary, they exposed themselves in battle
for their husbands or their lovers; from
which very circumstance we must con-
clude that, so far from reproaching Ariosto
and Tasso for having introduced so many
enamoured warriors into their poems, we
ought to praise them for having delineated
real and interesting manners.

When the crusading mania was at its height, there were some Christian women who shared the fatigues and dangers of their husbands. To such a pitch, indeed, was this enthusiasm carried, that the Genoese women undertook a crusade of their , and were on the point of setting out for Palestine to form petticoat battalions; they had made a vow so to do, but were absolved from it by a pope, who was a little wiser than themselves.

The exploits of Joan of Arc, better known as the Maid of Orleans, are less astonishing than those of Margaret of Anjou and the Countess De Montfort. These two princesses having been brought up in the luxury of courts, and Joan of Arc in the rude exercises of country life, it was more singular, as well as more noble, to quit a palace for the field, than a cottage.

The heroine who defended Beauvais

was, perhaps, superior to her who raised the siege of Orleans; for she fought quite as well, and neither boasted of being a maid, nor of being inspired. It was in 1472, when the Burgundian army was besieging Beauvais, that Jeanne Hachette, at the head of a number of women, sustained an assault for a considerable time, wrested the standard from one of the enemy who was about to plant it on the breach, threw the bearer into the trench, and gave time for the king's troops to arrive and relieve the town. Her descendants have been exempted from the taille, (poll tax)—a mean and shameful recomMargaret of Anjou, wife to the unfor- pense! The women and girls of Beautate Henry VI. of England, evinced, vais are more flattered by their walking fought in ten battles to deliver her hus-anniversary-day. Every public mark of juster war, a valour truly heroic; she before the men in the procession on the

"

the exemption from the taille is but a proof that the individuals so exempted were subjected to this servitude by the misfortune of their birth.

Datary has asserted, that he meant he should be master over Charlemagne.

Have not things the most venerablethe most sacred-the most divine, been obscured by the ambiguities of language Ask two Christians of what religion they

are.

There is hardly any nation which does not boast of having produced such heroines the number of these, however, is Each will answer, I am a Catholic not great; nature seems to have designed You think they are both of the same com women for other purposes. Women have munion; yet one is of the Greek, the other been known but rarely to exhibit them- of the Latin church; and they are irreselves as soldiers. In short, every people concileable. If you seek to be further have had their female warriors; but the informed, you will find that by the word kingdom of the Amazons, on the banks of Catholic, each of them understands unithe Thermodon, is, like most other ancient versal, in which case universal signifies a stories, nothing more than a poetic fiction. { part. AMBIGUITY-EQUIVOCATION. FOR want of defining terms, and especially for want of a clear understanding, almost all laws, which ought to be as plain as arithmetic and geometry, are as obscure as logogriphes. The melancholy proof of this is, that nearly all processes are founded on the sense of the laws, always differently understood by the pleaders, the advocates, and the judges.

The soul of St. Francis is in heaven is in paradise. One of these words signi fies the air; the other means a garden.

The word spirit is used alike to express extract, thought, distilled liquor, appa rition.

Ambiguity has been so necessary a vice in all languages, formed by what is called chance and by custom, that the author of all clearness and truth, himself condescended to speak after the manner of his The whole public law of Europe had people; whence it is that Elohim signiits origin in equivocal expressions, begin-fies in some places judges, at other times ning with the Salique law. She shall not gods, and at others angels. inherit Salique land. But what is Salique land? And shall not a girl inherit money, or a necklace, left to her, which may be worth more than the land?

"Tu es Petrus, et super hunc petrum ædificabo ecclesiam meam," would be equivocal in a profane tongue, and on a profane subject; but these words receive a divine sense from the mouth which utters them, and the subject to which they are applied.

The citizens of Rome saluted Karl, son of the Austrasian Pepin le Bref, by the name of imperator. Did they understand thereby, We confer on you all the prerogatives of Octavius, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius? We give you all the country which they possessed? However, they could not give it; for so far were they from being masters of it, that they were scarcely masters of their own city. There never was a more equivocal expres-ham, Isaac, and Jacob, likewise bears sion; and such as it was then it still is.

"I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob; now God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In the ordinary sense, these words might signify, I am the same God that was worshipped by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; as the earth, which bore Abra

their descendants; the sun which shines Did Leo III., the Bishop of Rome who to-day is the sun that shone on Abraham, is said to have saluted Charlemagne em- Isaac, and Jacob; the law of their chilperor, comprehend the meaning of the dren was their law. This does not, howwords which he pronounced? The Ger-ever, signify that Abraham, Isaac, and mans assert, that he understood by them Jacob are still living. But when the that Charles should be his master. The Messiah speaks, there is no longer any

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ambiguity; the sense is as clear as it is
divine. It is evident that Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, are not among the dead,
but live in glory, since this oracle is pro-
nounced by the Messiah: but it was ne-
cessary that he and no one else should

utter it.

The discourses of the Jewish prophets might seem equivocal to men of gross intelleets, who could not perceive their meaning; but they were not so to minds illumined by the light of faith.

All the oracles of antiquity were equivocal. It was foretold to Cræsus that a powerful empire was to fall; but was it to be his own? or that of Cyrus? It was also foretold to Pyrrhus that the Romas might conquer him, and that he might conquer the Romans. It was impossible that this oracle should lie.

caused men to exist there also. However pleasant it may be to dispute, it cannot be denied that the Suprome Being who lives in all nature, has created, about the forty-eighth degree, two-legged animals without feathers, the colour of whose skin is a mixture of white and carnation, with long beards approaching to red; about the line, in Africa and its islands, negroes without beards; and in the same latitude, other negroes with beards, some of them having wool, and some hair on their heads; and among them other animals quite white, having neither hair nor wool, but a kind of white silk. It does not very clearly appear what should have prevented God from placing on another continent animals of the same species, of a copper colour, in the same latitude in which, in Africa and Asia, they are found black; or even from making them without beards in the very same latitude in

When Septimius Severus, Pescennius Niger, and Clodius Albinus, were contending for the empire, the oracle of Del-which others possess them. phos, being consulted (notwithstanding the assertion of the Jesuit Baltus, that oracles had ceased) answered, that the brown was very good, the white good for nothing, and the African tolerable. It is i plain that there are more ways than one of explaming such an oracle.

When Aurelian consulted the God of Palmyra, (still in spite of Baltus), the God said that the doves fear the falcon. Whatever might happen, the God would not be embarrassed: the falcon would be the conqueror, and the doves the conquered. Sovereigns, as well as Gods, have sometimes made use of equivocation. Some tyrant, whose name I forget, having sworn to one of his captives, that he would not kill him, ordered that he should have nothing to eat, saying that he had promised not to put him to death, but he had not promised to keep him alive.

AMERICA.

SINCE framers of systems are continually conjecturing on the manner in which America can have been peopled, we will be equally constant in saying that He who caused flies to exist in those regions,

To what lengths are we carried by the rage for systems joined with the tyranny of prejudice! We see these animals; it is agreed that God has had the power to place them where they are; yet it is not agreed that he has so placed them. The same persons who readily admit that the beavers of Canada are of Canadian origin, assert that the men must have come there in boats, and that Mexico must have been peopled by some of the descendants of Magog. As well might it be said, that if there be men in the moon, they must have been taken thither by Astolpho on his hippogriff, when he went to fetch Roland's senses, which were corked up in a bottle. If America had been discovered in his time, and there had then been men in Europe systematic enough to have advanced, with the Jesuit Lafitau, that the Caribbees descended from the inhabitants of Caria, and the Hurons from the Jews, he would have done well to have brought back the bottle containing the wits of these reasoners, which he would doubtless have found in the moon, along with those of An{gelica's lover.