her natural motion, instead of going to the west to range herself under the sun, approached on the eastern side, and that she returned behind on the same side; which caused Apollophanes to say, "These, my dear Dionysius, are changes of divine things:" to which Dionysius replied, "Either the author of nature suffers, or the machine of the universe will be soon destroyed."

judge of the accuracy of these two quotations of reasoning.

It is true that the Paschal Chronicle of the Greeks, as well as St. Jerome Anastatius, the author of the Historia Miscella, and Freculphus of Luxem, among the Latins, all unite in representing the fragment of Phlegon in the same manner. But it is known that these five witnesses, so uniform in their dispositions, translated or copied the passage, not from Phlegon himself, but from Eusebius

Dionysius adds, that having remarked the exact time and year of this prodigy, and compared them with what Paul after-while John Philoponus, who had read wards told him, he yielded up to the truth as well as his friend. This is what led to the belief that the darkness happening at the death of Jesus Christ was caused by a supernatural eclipse; and what has extended this opinion is, that Maldonat says it is that of almost all the Catholics. How is it possible to resist the authority of an ocular, enlightened, and disinterested witness; since it was supposed that when he saw this eclipse, Dionysius was a Pagan?

Phlegon, far from agreeing with Eusebius, differs from him by two years. We could also name Maximus and Malela, who lived when the work of Phlegon still existed; and the result of an examination of the whole is, that five of the quoted authors copy Eusebius. Philoponus, who really saw the work of Phlegon, gives a second reading, Maximus a third, and Malela a fourth; so that they are far from relating the passage in the same manner.

As these pretended letters of Diony- In short, the calculations of Hodgson, sius were not forged until towards the Hally Whiston, and Gale Morris, have fifteen or sixteenth century, Eusebius of demonstrated that Phlegon and Thallus Cæsarea was contented with quoting the speak of a natural eclipse which hapevidence of Phlegon, a freed man of the {pened on the 24th of November, in the Emperor Adrian. This author was also first year of the two hundred and second a Pagan, and had written the history of Olympiad, and not in the fourth year, as the Olympiads in sixteen books, from Eusebius pretends. Its size at Nicea in their origin to the year 140 of the vulgar Bithynia was only, according to Whisera. He is made to say, that in the ton, from nine to ten digits; that is to fourth year of the two hundred and se- } say, two thirds and a half of the sun's cond Olympiad, there was the greatest disk. It began at a quarter past eight, eclipse of the sun that had ever been and ended at five minutes past ten; and seen the day was changed to night at between Cairo in Egypt and Jerusalem, the sixth hour, the stars were seen, and according to Mr. Gale Morris, the sun an earthquake overthrew several edifices was totally obscured for near two minutes. in the city of Niceas in Bithynia. Eu- At Jerusalem the middle of the eclipse sebius adds, that the same events are re-happened about an hour and a quarter lated in the ancient monuments of the after noon. Greeks, as having happened in the eighteenth year of Tiberius. It is thought that Eusebius alluded to Thallus, a Greek historian already cited by Justin, Tertullian, and Julius Africanus; but neither the work of Thallus, nor that of Phlegon, having reached us, we can only

{

But what ought to spare all this discussion is, that Tertullian says, the day became suddenly dark whilst the sun was in the midst of his career; that the Pagans believed that it was an eclipse, not knowing that it had been predicted by the prophet Amos in these words, “ I

wal cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.”—“They,” adds Tertullian, “who have sought for the cause of this event, and could not discover it, have denied it; but the fact is certain, and you will find it noted in your archives."

ECONOMY (RURAL).

THE primitive economy, that which is the foundation of all the rest, is rural. In early times it was exhibited in the patriarchal life, and especially in that of Abraham, who made a long journey through the arid deserts of Memphis to buy corn. I shall continue, with due respect, to discard all that is divine in the history of Abraham, and attend to his rural economy alone.

I do not learn that he ever had a house; he quitted the most fertile country of the universe, and towns in which there were commodious houses, to go wandering in countries, the languages of which he did not understand.

He went from Sodom into the desert

Origen, on the contrary, says that it is not astonishing foreign authors have said nothing about the darknesses of which the evangelists speak, since they only appeared in the environs of Jerusalem; Judea, according to him, being designated under the name of all the earth, in more than one place in scripture. He also avows, that the passage in the gospel of St. Luke, in which we read that in his time all the earth was covered with darkness, on account of an eclipse of the sun, had been thus falsified by some ig-of Gerar, without forming the least esnorant Christian, who thought thereby to throw a light on the text of the evangelist; or by some ill-intentioned enemy, who wished a pretext to calumniate the church, as if the evangelists had remarked an eclipse at a time when it was very evident that it could not have happened. { "It is true," adds he, "that Phlegon says that there was one under Tiberius: but as he does not say that it happened at the full moon, there is nothing wonderful in that."

tablishment. When he turned away, Hagar and the child Ismael, it was still in a desert, and all the food he gave them was a morsel of bread and a cruise of water.

When he was about to sacri→ fice his son Isaac to the Lord, it was again in a desert. He cut the wood himself to burn the victim, and put it on the back of Isaac, whom he was going to immolate.

His wife died in a place called Kirgath-arba, or Hebron; he had not six "These obscurations," continues Ori-feet of earth in which to bury her, but gen, "were of the nature of those which was obliged to buy a cave to deposit her covered Egypt in the time of Moses, and body. This was the only piece of land were not felt in the quarter in which the which he ever possessed. Israelites dwelt. Those of Egypt lasted However, he had many children; for, three days, while those of Jerusalem without reckoning Isaac and his posteonly lasted three hours; the first were rity, his second wife Keturah, at the age after the manner of the second; and even of one hundred and forty years, accordas Moses raised his hands to heaven, anding to the ordinary calculation, bore him invoked the Lord to draw them down five male children, who departed towards on Egypt, so Jesus Christ, to cover Je- Arabia. rusalem with darkness, extended his hands on the cross against an ungrateful people, who had cried-Crucify him, crucify him!'

We may, in this case, exclaim with Plutarch, the darkness of superstition is more dangerous than that of eclipses.

It is not said that Isaac had a single piece of land in the country in which his father died; on the contrary, he went into the desert of Gerar with his wife Rebecca to the same Abimelech, King of Gerar, who had been in love with his mother.

This king of the desert became also

amorous of his wife Rebecca, whom her husband caused to pass for his sister, as Abraham had acted with regard to Sarah and this same King Abimelech forty years before. It is rather astonishing that in this family the wife always passed for the sister when there was anything to be gained; but as these facts are consecrated, it is for us to maintain a respectful silence.

Scripture says that Abraham enriched? himself in this horrible country, which became fertile for his benefit, and that he became extremely powerful. But it is also mentioned that he had no water to drink, that he had a great quarrel with the king's herdsmen for a well; and it is easy to discover that he still had not a house of his own.

His children, Esau and Jacob, had not a greater establishment than their father. Jacob was obliged to seek his fortune in Mesopotamia, from whence Abraham came; he served seven years for one of the daughters of Laban, and seven other years to obtain the second daughter. He fled with his wives and the flocks of his father-in-law, who pursued him. A precarious fortune, that of Jacob.

Esau is represented as wandering like Jacob. None of the twelve patriarchs, the children of Jacob, had any fixed dwelling, or a field of which they were the proprietors. They only reposed in their tents like Bedouin Arabs.

family in abundance. His land will daily improve; he will support them without fearing the irregularity of the seasons and the weight of taxes, because one good year repairs the damages of two bad ones. He will enjoy in his domain a real sovereignty, which will only be subject to the laws. It is the most natural state of man; the most tranquil, the most happy, and, unfortunately, the most rare.

The son of this venerable patriarch seeing himself rich, is disgusted with paying the humiliating tax of the taille. Having unfortunately learned some Latin, he repairs to town, buys a post which exempts him from the tax, and which bestows nobility. He sells his domain to pay for his vanity; marries a girl brought up in luxury, who dishonours and ruins him: he dies in beggary, and his only son wears a livery in Paris.

ECONOMY OF SPEECH

TO SPEAK BY ECONOMY.

THIS is an expression consecrated in its appropriation by the fathers of the church and even by the primitive propagators of our holy religion: it signifies the applicaton of oratory to circumstances.

For example:-St. Paul, being a Christian, comes to the temple of the Jews to perform the Judaic rites, in order to show that he does not forsake the Mosaic law; he is recognised at the end of a week, and accused of having profaned the temple. Loaded with blows, he is dragged along by the mob; the tribune of the cohort (tribunis cohortis) arrives, and binds him with a double chain. The next day this tribune assembles the council, and carries Paul before it, when the high-priest Ananias commences proceedings by giving him a box on the ear; on which Paul salutes him with the epithet of "a whited wall."

It is clear that this patriarchal life would not conveniently suit the temperature of our atmosphere. A good cultivator, such as Pignoux of Auvergne, must have a convenient house, with an aspect towards the east ; large barns and stables; stalls properly built; the whole amounting to about fifty thousand francs of our present money in value. He must sow a hundred acres with corn, besides having good pastures; he should possess some acres of vineyard, and about fifty for in- { "But when Paul perceived that the ferior grain and herbs; thirty acres of one part were sadducees and the other wood; a plantation of mulberries, silk-pharisees, he cried out in the council, worms, and bees. With all these advant- Men and brethren, I am a pharisee, the ages well economised, he can maintain a son of a pharisee; of the hope and resur

rection of the dead I am called in question.' And when he had so said, there arose a discussion between the pharisees and the sadducees: and the multitude was divided. For the sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the pharisees confess both." It is very evident from the text, that Paul was not a pharisee after he became a Christian, and that there was in this affair no question either of resurrection or hope, of angel or spirit.

not cite here; I will content myself with relating the example of the apostle Paul," &c. &c.

St. Augustin often writes with economy. He so accommodates himself to time and circumstances, that in one of his epistles he confesses that he only explained the Trinity because he must say something.

Assuredly, this was not because he doubted the holy Trinity; but he felt how ineffable this mystery is, and wished to content the curiosity of the people.

This method was always received in

The text shows that Paul only spoke thus to embroil the pharisees and saddu-theology. It employed an argument cees. This was speaking with economy; that is to say, with prudence; it was a pious artifice, which perhaps would not have been permitted to any but an apostle.

against the Eucratics, which was the cause of triumph to the Carpocratians; and when it afterwards disputed with the Carpocratians, its arms were changed.

It is asserted that Jesus Christ died for It is thus that almost all the fathers of many, when the number of rejected is the church have spoken "with economy." set forth; but when his universal bounty St. Jerome developes this method admir-is to be manifested, he is said to have ably in his fifty-fourth letter to Pammachus. Weigh his words.

After having said that there are occasions when it is necessary to present a loaf and to throw a stone, he continues thus:

died for all. Here you take the real sense for the figurative; there the figurative for the real; as prudence and expediency direct.

will be contented in sermons with moral proofs, and even with declamations exhibiting no proofs at all.

Such practices are not admitted in justice. A witness would be punished who "Pray read Demosthenes, read Ci- told the pour and contre of a capital ofcero; and if these rhetoricians displease fence. But there is an infinite difference you, because their art consists in speaking { between vile human interests, which reof the seeming rather than the true, read }quire the greatest clearness, and divine Plato, Theophrastus, Xenophon, Aristotle, interests, which are hidden in an impeneand all those who, having dipped into the trable abyss. The same judges who refountain of Socrates, drew different wa-quire indubitable demonstrative proofs, ters from it. Is there among them any candour, any simplicity? What terms among them are not ambiguous, and what sense do they not make free with to bear St. Augustin speaks with economy, away the palm of victory? Origen, Me- when he says, "I believe, because it is thodius, Eusebius, Apollinarus, have absurd; I believe, because it is impossiwritten a million of arguments against ble." These words, which would be exCelsus and Porphyry. Consider with travagant in all worldly affairs, are very rewhat artifice, with what problematic sub-spectable in theology. They signify, that tlety they combat the spirit of the devil. They do not say what they think, but what it is expedient to say: Non quod sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt.} And not to mention other Latins-Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, and Hilarius-whom I will

which is absurd and impossible to mortal eyes is not so to the eyes of God: God has revealed to me these pretended absurdities, these apparent impossibilities; therefore I ought to believe them.

An advocate would not be allowed to speak thus at the bar. They would shut

up in a lunatic asylum a witness who might say, “I assert that the accused, while shut up in a country house in Martinique, killed a man in Paris; and I am the more certain of this homicide, because it is absurd and impossible." But revelations, miracles, and faith, are quite a distinct order of things.

The same St. Augustin observes, in his 153rd letter, "It is written, that the whole world belongs to the faithful, and infidels have not an obolus that they possess legitimately."

intimidate the Roman empire," although of such recent origin, we fill your cities and your armies.""

It is in the same spirit he asserts that Pilate was a Christian in his heart; and the whole of his apology is filled with similar assertions, which redoubled the zeal of his proselytes.

Let us terminate these examples of the economical style, which are numberless, by a passage of St. Jerome, in his controversy with Jovian upon second marriages. The holy Jerome roundly asserts that it is plain, by the formation of the two sexes-in the description of which he is rather particular-that they are destined for one another, and for propagation. It follows, therefore, that they are to make love without ceasing, in order that their respective faculties may not be bestowed

If upon this principle a brace of bankers were to wait upon me, to assure me that they were of the faithful, and in that capacity had appropriated the property belonging to me, a miserable worldling, to themselves, it is certain that they would be committed to the Chatelet, in spite of the economy of the language of St. Au-in vain. This being the case, why should gustin.

St. Irenæus asserts, that we must not condemn the incest of the two daughters of Lot, nor that of Thamar with her father-in-law, because the holy scripture has not expressly declared them criminal. { This verbal economy prevents not the legal punishment of incest among ourselves. It is true, that if the Lord expressly ordered people to commit incest, it would not be sinful; which is the economy of Irenæus. His laudable object is to make us respect everything in the holy scriptures; but as God has not expressly praised the foregoing doings of the daughters of Lot and of Judah, we are permitted to condemn them.

not men and women marry again? Why, indeed, is a man to deny his wife to his friend, if a cessation of attention on his own part be personally convenient? He may present the wife of another with a loaf of bread, if she be hungry; and why may not her other wants be supplied, if they are urgent? Functions are not given to lie dormant, &c. &c.

After such a passage, it is useless to quote any more; but it is necessary to remark, by the way, that the economical style, so intimately connected with the polemical, ought to be employed with the greatest circumspection; and that it belongs not to the profane to imitate the things hazarded by the saints, either as All the first Christians, without excep-regards the heat of their zeal, or the tion, thought of war like the Quakers and piquancy of their delivery. Dunkers of the present day, and the Bramins both ancient and modern. Tertul lian is the father who is most explicit ACCORDING to some authors, this word against this legal species of murder, which comes from electus, chosen; it does not our vile human nature renders expedient. appear that its etymology can be derived "No custom, no rule," says he, "can from any other Latin word, since all is render this criminal destruction legiti-choice that is elegant. Elegance is the mate." result of regularity and grace.

Nevertheless, after assuring us that no Christian can carry arms, he says, " by economy," in the same book, in order to

ELEGANCE.

This word is employed in speaking of painting and sculpture. Elegans signum is opposed to signum rigens—a propor