The night of Holy Thursday in the island of Corfu is remarkable for a superstition of a singular kind. Some people cause a shirt to be made for them on that night., The work must be performed by an odd number of Maidens, all named Mary, and the shirt begun at midnight must be cut out, sewed, washed and ironed before day-all which conditions being punctually observed, it is believed to possess the inestimable virtue of rendering the wearer invulnerable. shirts are very scarce.

Such

THE PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. (Continued from our last.)

THE HE promise of divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and to the slave, to the Greek and to the Barbarian, to the jew and to the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from Earth to Heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his happiness, or even gratify that secret pride, which under the semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart, was still reserved for the members of the christian church-but at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited, to accept the glorious distinction which was not only proffered as a favor but imposed as an obligation. It became the most sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but all-powerful deity.

The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue, was a work however of some time and of some difficulty. The Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the Messiah, foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the number of believers. These Judaising christians seem to have argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same through all eternity, had designed to abolish those sa

ered rites which had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them would have been no less clear and solemn than their first promulgation: that, instead of those frequent declarations, which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic religion, it would have been presented as a provisionary scheme intended to last only till the coming of the Messiah, who should instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship: that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed with him on earth, instead of authorising by their example the most minute observances of the Mosaic law, would have published to the world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies, without suffering christianity to remain during so many years obscurely confounded among the sects of the Jewish church. Arguments like these appear to have been used in the defence of the expiring cause of the Mosaic law-but the industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to unfold the system of the gospel, and to pronounce with the utmost caution and tenderness a sentence of condemnation so repugnant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing Jews.

The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of the necessity ofthose precautions, and of the deep impression which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries. The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all ciscumcised Jews; and the congregation over which they presided, united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years under the immediate inspection of his apostles, should be received as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable parent, and refieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms. But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to all the christian colonies insensibly diminished.. The Jewish converts, or as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the various religions of polytheism inlisted "under the banner of Christ: and the Gentiles, who with the

approbation of their peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple, of the city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt by the Nazarenes, as in their manners, though not in their faith, they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the christians to the wrath, of the supreme deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins of Jerusalem to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan, where that ancient church languished above sixty years in solitude and obscurity. They still enjoyed the comfort of making frequent and devout visits to the Holy City, and the hope of being one day restored to those seats which both nature and religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at length under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of the Jews filled up the measure of their calamities; and the Romans exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the rights of victory with unusual rigour. The emperor founded, under the name Elia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, to which he gave the privileges of a colony-and denouncing the severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected Marcus for their bi shop, a prelate of the race of Gentiles, and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion the most sonsiderable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of their ha bits and prejudices, they purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their uni on with the catholic church.

When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and scism were imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to accompany their Latin bishop.They still preserved their former habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of Berea, or, as it

is now called, of Aleppo in Syria. The name of Nazarenes, was deemed too honourable for those christian Jews-and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous epithet of Ebionites. In a few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy, whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continue to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect christian, if he were content to practice the Mosaic ceremonies, without pretending to assert their general use of necessity.

GIBBON.

FOR sale by the editor, (price 1 dollar) at No. 26 Chatham-street, the PRINCIPLES OF NATURE, or a Developement of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery among the Human Species, second edition, with five new chapters, upon the following subjects:-Origin of Moral Evil, and the means of its Ultimate Extirpation from the Earth; that Moral Principles are not founded upon Theological Ideas, nor upon any Sectarian Modification of these Ideas, but up on a basis as immortal and as indestructible as Human Existence itself; Universal Benevolence; Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet; Philosophical Immortality.

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PROSPECT,

OR

View of the Moral World,

BY ELIHU PALMER.

- VOL. I.

SATURDAY, January 14th, 1804.

No. VI.

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS.

MEN who have not been accustomed to take a compre

hensive view of the nature of things, and the character of moral principle, fear the progress of truth, lest it produce wisdom and virtue to humanize their own country, which losing in consequence its ferocity, would be invaded and enslaved by the vice and folly of their neighbours. They do not reflect upon the irresistible force of trtuth, which, whenever it appears, will remain fixed as a sun, and all the powers of error, aided by art, can never force it below the moral horison, though they may cause occasional fogs and mists, to interrupt, like passing clouds, its meridian splendor. The spirit and essence of this remark are supported by the general history of the human race with some few exceptions, which after all possess more of appearance than of reality. All mankind are agreed in their lamentations of the miseries of human nature, and all do, or must agree, that the only remedy is to be found in the intellectual faculties of man. Under what diabolical fascination, or spell of the demon error, must he act, to consent to chain those faculties, lest their operations produce the increase instead of the remedy of those miseries. In the primitive state of society, men removed many physical ills by the power of intellect, and those ills which may be called moral or ignorant institutions, shall they be perpetuated by prohibiting the use of intellect or ex position of thought, at the very time humanity stands in most need of it. It may be the interest of priests and kings to maintain such a doctrine; but the best interests of human life require the industrious inculcations of opposite sentiments. Christian theology is replete with maxims and dogmas which present themselves in a formidable manner, and