being the quality esteemed most especially appropriate or becoming to a man. Thence it was extended to the qualities most becoming to the mind, just as the kindred Sanscrit word viras denotes, as an adjective, in the first place brave' or 'heroic,' and metaphorically excellent' or eminent.' As a substantive, the Sanscrit viras signifies a warrior or champion. Heroism, in that language, is vaira. The English 'worth' is the same word, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon wyrth, the root of which is wer, the Teutonic representative of what is vir in the Latin, viras in Sanscrit, and gwyr in the still older Celtic. 'Apern, the Greek word for virtue, is of similar etymology, being derived from apŋs, 'bravery.' As in the case of virtus and virtue, so the physical meaning of åperǹ is occasionally retained in Greek writers, and in such places should therefore be translated not 'virtue,' but courage.' For want of attention to this, the sense of several passages in the epistles has been seriously impaired in the authorised English version. In Philippians iv. 8, for instance, it is not virtue, in its metaphorical sense, that is meant, but courage, i. e., courage to profess one's faith. So in 2 Peter i. 5, where the translation gives 'add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge,' the Greek apern is plainly intended to recommend, not virtue in the aggregate, but manly boldness in the resistance of spiritual evil.

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116. Virtue' being thus in its literal meaning manliness,' the word is equivalent to the phrase 'behaving like a man,' which is only another way of saying that the person so described has within him the honour, integrity, and innocence of which physical strength is the outward representative and symbol. Man is not truly man, that is, 'virtuous,' till he becomes filled with such qualities, and adds to them the love of God and of his neighbour. The perception of this is universal, as testified by the language of common life. Shakspere recognises it in the well-known lines

'If you were men, as men you are in shew,
You would not use the gentle ladies so.'

The Scriptures repeatedly confirm it. In Jeremiah v. 1, for example, · Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and seek if ye can find a man; if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth.'

117. From the same primitive source which gave vir, viras, and gwyr, is, doubtless, descended the synonymous Hebrew (geber). The Hebrew writers themselves testify to its meaning, by using it as the name for 'man' whenever the distinctive character which strength gives to the masculine gender is wished to be expressed with emphasis, as in Jeremiah xliii. 6. is a collateral ancestor of the Greek Kußeрvaw,

and the Latin guberno, the parent and synonym of govern. Strength being naturally associate with physical sovereignty, becomes significant of it, and thence, by correspondence, of the social, political, and civil authority which distinguishes the man of intellectual strength from the weak and incompetent one. Hence, whatever name may be given to the quality of physical strength, becomes, at the same time, the appropriate designation for the powers which distinguish office and command from servitude.

118. Fy, the frequent termination of verbs, is from the Latin fieri, to make, be, or become. Thus, to terrify is to cause to have terror; amplify is to make large; petrify to make into stone; rectify to make straight, metaphorically, to amend or improve, because straightness corresponds to what is good and just, crookedness to what is evil and deceitful. Hence that fine figure in the prophet, the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.' (Isaiah xl. 4.) Hence, likewise, what is true and just is called correct, as to 'correct' an error, a 'correct' translation. So the direct way is the true way, and to 'direct' a person is to enable him to act straightly' or truthfully. He who does this is colloquially termed a straightforward' man, while his opposite is called a 'crooked fellow.' On the same ground, Aristotle terms the artful speeches of servants trying to deceive their employers, тa kukλa, 'round-abouts.' The Latin rectus has also given us our word right,' which, in reality, is only another spelling of it. To do right, and to act with rectitude, are, therefore, synonymous expressions. Wrong' is cognate with wring' and 'wrench,' the parent of all three words being the Anglo-Saxon wringan 'to twist.' On the same correspondence proceed also the terms pervert, perverse, perversity, oblique, obliquity, &c., all of which imply, in their literal sense, deviation from a straight line, and metaphorically evil and deception. Depravity' implies the same thing, being derived from pravus, crooked.

(To be continued.)

ASPIRATIONS OF THE ROMISH CHURCH.

"Babylon the Great is fallen. How much she hath glorified herself; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow." (Rev. xviii.)

Ir is the opinion of some, and the fear of others, that the Romish Church will again raise her head and obtain power; some of the most timid supporters of the Protestant Association already in imagination

hear the crackling of the Smithfield fires renewed. What the Romish Church herself hopes for, may be seen in the following extract from the Dublin Roman Catholic Review" for October last ::

66

66

The time, however, has now come when the Catholic Church may doff her garb of mourning, and put on her beautiful vesture, and re-assert her dominion over the world: that dominion which, of course, she has never relinquished, but only, in appearance, suspended. She has a twofold mission, and must make the first use of the liberty which she has hardly won to carry out her great purposes. One part of her office is to rule the intellect, another, no less important, is to gain the heart. In the execution of the former part of this trust, she will sooner or later be required to cope with the formidable hosts of evil who are now arraying themselves on the side of a material and God-denying philosophy; and in pursuance of the latter, she will have to draw upon those manifold resources of influence which accrue to her from her command over creation, and her knowledge of all that is in man. At one time, by cutting appropriate and heavenward channels for the current of rushing thought and onward invention; at another, converting to her service the powerful and versatile capacities of art and literature; now refining sense and sanctifying imagination by her august and soul-thrilling ceremonial, and now unlocking the affections with the key of her deep devotional science, she must gradually dislodge the enemy from one after another of his strong holds, and so bring every haughty understanding, perverse faculty, and rebel inclination, into the obedience of Christ [alias his vicar,' we presume, the Pope].

Many circumstances conspire to mark out our own England as a probable arena of this great contest between the powers of light and darkness. At such

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a crisis it is interesting to reflect upon the prayers which almost throughout Catholic Christendom are doing violence to heaven in England's behalf. It cannot be that 'the child of so many prayers' should ultimately fail.

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"But the [R. C.] Church must gain England (!) before England can gain the world. There is absolutely no weapon of influence which she must not wrest from the enemy's hand. There is no field of exertion which she must not appropriate; no avenue to men's hearts which she must not pre-occupy. Her prerogative it is, and her province it must be, to elevate literature, to theologize philosophy [it is presumed by means of the inquisition, if possible]; to purify art, to reform, refine, and Christianize all the works of human genius, and all the impulses of popular thought."

This is grandiloquent enough. But Babylon IS fallen. The Virgin Mary disowns the idolatrous worship offered to her; (T. C. R. 827.). and the "soul-thrilling ceremonial" of Babylon will cease to intoxicate, in proportion as men awake from the effects of the opiate administered by priesteraft, and assert their birthright of private judgment on the things that belong to their eternal peace.

LOOKER-ON..

273

THE TREASURY OF HEAVEN AND THE CHURCH.

In the 12th chapter of Mark, we read of a poor widow who, amongst richer contributors, threw in her whole living (amounting to "two mites, which make a farthing") as a contribution to the Jewish Treasury, for the support of the Temple worship. Our Lord commended this liberality, but evidently not for the sake of the literal, but for the sake of the spiritual sense, for if the act of this poor widow, (considered apart from her devotedness to God) were really commendable, every one ought, in like manner, to devote the whole of his living to the external support of religion, which would not only be wrong, but also an impossibility.

The poor widow spiritually signifies those who appreciate their inward poverty, in respect to the riches of truth and goodness; the whole living signifies the whole life of both the will and the understanding devoted to the Lord. The two mites signify the conjunction of good with truth so far as known, so that all the knowledge possessed is brought to bear upon the life the treasury signifies the provision, namely, the riches of goodness and truth, made for spiritual worship in the church and in heaven, for heaven and the church are signified by the temple; for the outward worship of speech and action presented in heaven and the church, if deficient of the spiritual riches of goodness and truth indispensable for its support, would speedily be extinguished. When the church comes to its end, it is void of those riches; for it consists merely of a lifeless external, devoid of a living internal. Every one who devotes his whole life to God, receives from Him a corresponding proportion of the riches of goodness and truth; these he brings into the church, so that the church becomes spiritually rich by virtue of, and in proportion to, the number and quality of such contributors, who thus "lay up treasure in heaven;" first they do so in the heaven within them, called their internal man, and when they die, they take the treasure deposited therein to the heaven of angels; which thus becomes so much the richer, and hence it follows, that heaven is continually increasing in spiritual riches, available for the vital support of the celestial worship which is offered up in heaven for ever. Every regenerated spirit brings his acquisition into the great storehouse of heaven, where

"Each would his own delights impart

To increase the general sum;

And thus the joys of every heart

The joys of all become."

N. S. No. 127.-VOL. XI.

X

Such, doubtless, was the delightful view entertained by the primitive church of the casting of their whole living, their spiritual wealth, into the treasury of the church. But this spiritual truth, as well as others entertained by primitive Christians, was sadly perverted when the church became Babylon. Then these accumulated gifts, heretofore returned humbly and gratefully to the Lord, in the sincere confession that all the "riches' of the church are His, (Rev. v. 12.) came to be designated as a treasury of merits, over and above what were needful for individual salvation, the fruit of "works of supererogation" performed by "the saints;" the keeping of which treasury, or the key of it, was in the hand of the papal successor of St. Peter, who had power to supply out of it the lack of merits in great sinners, who might make themselves agreeable to "the church" by various external gifts or

services.*

But now by the Divine mercy we are enabled to see, that he who brings no treasure of goodness and truth to the enrichment of the church, and of his own society in particular, lays up "no treasure in heaven." May the New Church be ever growing richer by an increasing and actual reception of the "unsearchable riches of Christ!"

M.

* According to Mosheim, this doctrine was invented in the 12th century, to justify the sale of indulgences. A "St. Thomas" in the 13th century affirms, "that there actually existed an immense treasure of merit, composed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints had performed beyond what was necessary for their own salvation, and which were therefore applicable for the benefit of others; that the guardian and dispenser of this precious treasure was the Roman pontiff; and that of consequence he was empowered to assign to such as he thought proper, a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes."-See Index-Article Indulgences.

REVIEW.

THE PHONETIC BIBLE. Fred. Pitman. London, 1850. WHEN, little more than a year ago, there was inserted in the Repository an article on the Reading and Writing Reform, under the title of "Phonography," we did not anticipate that we should so soon have the pleasure of noticing the publication of the entire Bible in phonetic spelling. It is, however, now published, and is at once a proof of the great progress making by the reform, and an additional guarantee of its permanent success. It has been shewn repeatedly, not only in the books and circulars which have been issued from the presses of Messrs. Ellis and Pitman, but in a variety of publications by disinterested parties, that the intellectual and moral elevation of the " masses" cannot