with trifling expense, given at York College; for doubtless that city contains some generous, liberal-hearted physician (possibly one connected with the Unitarians) who would, for a very moderate gratuity, every term deliver such a course, and likewise examine the students in this branch periodically; and through him, too, doubtless could be obtained access to the public infirmaries of that city, for the students' experience, observation and improvement: so that they might possess the requisite knowledge in medicine ere they leave the College. The expense now proposed would be so small, the probable good so great, that I can hardly doubt but the Trustees would provide for the charge out of the annual contributions. As a subscriber, I heartily approve of it, knowing by experience its utility to both the poor and even the middle class of country society. Those of your readers who, like myself, reside at a considerable distance from a town, well know how to appreciate the suggestion, but much more so if in a vicinity where poverty

the understanding and the heart which he had just heard from the pulpit, he exclaimed to this effect," He had nothing to do with him, for he did not belong to his club." Humanity cannot help shedding a tear at the bare recital, but this fact alone evinces the propriety of the suggestion made; for if any one would so conduct himself before strangers and numbers, are we not warranted in believing, without certainty of remuneration, many a poor, distressed object would be never approached? Instances, too, are known where others have refused to dismount from their horses and enter the house of the patient till they have received their fee. Would not the minister, in any distressing cases of poverty, (were he properly qualified,) be an angel of mercy, could he supply the place of a professional medical attendant? I shall, therefore, not cease to hope Unitarian Ministers may be in future so qualified.

G. D.

Clifton, July 9, 1821. YOUR correspondent J. W. in

SIR,

medical attendance. I could enumerate heart-rending cases of this description, which a minister, not acting from any motives but those of love to his fellow-creatures, might, (with competent knowledge,) have been highly instrumental in relieving.

At an anniversary of a village benefit club, a few years ago, the clergyman, with his accustomed benevolence and disposition to promote laudable objects, consented to preach to them: he embraced so favourable an opportunity to convey instruction, by selecting the admirable lesson of the good Samaritan, enjoining on them the duty of assisting and contributing to each other's relief in the hour of necessity and disease. Amongst the official characters who attended, was the doctor of the club, who received an annual gratuity for his services. The members of the club, as well as auditors, were very numerous for a week-day sermon. When service was over, and the members had reached, in procession, the church-yard, an individual, a looker-on in the crowd, fell down, apparently in a fit. The doctor was instantly summoned, and, notwithstanding the eloquent appeal both to

pears to refer to a communication of mine in your last Volume, in his inquiry respecting an Unitarian place of worship at Scarborough.

I have not heard that any thing further has been done towards the accomplishment of the proposed plan_than what was stated in that letter. I believe it is the opinion of some of the friends of the proposal, that unless a handsome chapel could be built, and a regularly educated minister obtained, it is better that nothing should be attempted. But in this opinion I cannot accord. It is said to be a proverbial maxim with the Italians, that "in governing others, you must do what you can do, not all you would do" and it may be peculiarly useful for those to remember this who wish to effect any important change in public opinion. If chapels cannot be built, let us hire rooms; or if a more costly building cannot be afforded, let us be content with the humblest; if a learned minister cannot be obtained, let respectable laymen devote a portion of their time to the communication of such religious knowledge as they possess.

I grant that in watering-places, to attract the attention of the higher ranks ought to be made a principal object; but though we may have hearers, we can never have a congregation unless we lay the foundation deep in the middle and lower classes. Nor are the visitors the only persons whose religious welfare is to be provided for in such a place. There is a very numerous class of persons drawn together by the hope of living by the visitors, many of whom are often unconnected with any religious body. Unitarianism is of great value to the rich, as it gives that true balance to the mind, for want of which we see them continually falling into scepticism, or a grotesque, preposterous mixture of fanaticism and dissipation. But whose heart does not bleed to see the common people, to whom the pure gospel was first preached, and who heard it gladly, given up as a prey to such sects as the Ranters in England, and the New-light men in America? I have little doubt that a society might be gathered, and a chapel in time built at Scarborough, if such methods as the diffusion of tracts, the preaching of missionaries, meetings for religious conversation, and the teaching a Sunday-school, were adopted in the first instance. The subscriptions are not, I apprehend, yet paid, because there is no near prospect of raising the whole sum. As a small contributor, I beg to suggest that the money be paid and applied to some such purposes as those above specified. And if your correspondent J. W, be a frequenter of Scarborough, he cannot be more advantageously employed in behalf of the cause, than by directing his attention to the subject. The names were received by Arthur Shore, Esq., of Scarborough. May I be allowed to

additional subject of concern to me in the resignation of my office at Hull, in consequence of a weak state of health, that I cannot take any part in so useful

your last Number, p. 334, I beg leave to state for his information, that in the case to which he alludes, it appears to me he has inferred too much in supposing that the Trustees had given a guarantee to the Minister for the amount of his income: or such guarantee, if given, might not have been in writing, and, therefore, under the statute of Frauds, could not have been admissible evidence in a court of law. I have not been able to refer to the report of the case alluded to, but there must, I am convinced, be some error in it, as indeed very few newspaper reports of decisions can be relied on: but in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must conclude that the Minister had no guarantee in writing for the payment of his income: for there can be no doubt whatever, that persons, whether Trustees or not, giving such guarantee, would be compellable by law to its due performance: and indeed the common honesty of every one must be shocked were it otherwise.

Trustees, as such, have certainly a right to pay every other outgoing before the Minister, who must be satisfied with what remains, as they are not accountable for any more money than comes to their hands; but if they overstep their official character of Trustees, and become guarantees, they will be bound to the due performance of their engagement.

Hoping, however, that an appeal to the law will never become necessary in the generally harmonious and amicable arrangements of Unitarian societies,

constant readers) that you should assert "the power of the Head of the Church to be strangely overrated by the Layman." I can only attribute such an assertion to your attention not being sufficiently attracted to a deeper investigation of the subject: or it may be the carelessness or (if you prefer it) the " eagerness" which has betrayed me into committing two palpable, though comparatively insignificant blunders, may have disposed you to conclude I was equally inaccurate in discussing weightier matters. Every assertion relating to the King's supremacy contained in the pamphlet in question, you may find fully substantiated in Burnet and Tindal; by a reference to whom, as well as to Fuller's Church History, but more especially to the different ecclesiastical powers exercised by Elizabeth, Charles I. and Anne, the "mistakes" in your Review may be attributed to the right person, and not "disserve" the cause of Truth. I am sure your candour will not refuse the above an early place in your valuable Repository.

THE LAYMAN.

GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING.

No. CCCLXXX.

Modern compared with ancient
Greeks.

"What I say," continued my master, "is perfectly true. The complexion of the modern Greek may receive a different cast from different surrounding objects: the core still is the same as in the days of Pericles. Credulity, versatility, and thirst of distinctions from the earliest periods formed, still form, and ever will continue to form, the basis of the Greek character; and the dissimilarity in the external appearance of the nation arises, not from any radical change in its temper and disposition, but only from the incidental variation in the uncans through which the same pro

The

pensities are to be gratified. ancient Greeks worshiped a hundred gods; the modern Greeks have faith in relics and miracles, in amulets and divinations. The ancient Greeks brought rich offerings and gifts to the shrines of their deities for the purpose of obtaining success in war and pre-eminence in peace; the modern Greeks hang up dirty rags round the sanctuary of their saints to shake off an ague or to propitiate a mistress. The former were staunch patriots at home, and subtle courtiers in Persia; the latter defy the Turks in Mayno, and fawn upon them at the Fanar. Besides, was not every commonwealth of ancient Greece as much a prey to cabals and factions as every community of modern Greece? Does not every modern Greek preserve the same desire for supremacy, the same readiness to undermine by every means, fair or foul, his competitors, which was displayed by his ancestors? Do not the Turks of the present day resemble the Romans of past ages in their respect for the ingenuity, and, at the same time, in their contempt for the character of their Greek subjects? And does the Greek of the Fanar shew the least inferiority to the Greek of the Piræus in quickness of perception, in fluency of tongue, and in fondness for quibbles, for disputations and for sophistry?-Believe me, the very difference between the Greeks of time past and of the present day, arises only from their thorough resemblance, from that equal pliability of temper and of faculties in both, which has ever made them receive with equal readiness the impression of every mould, and the impulse of every agent. When patriotism, public spirit and pre-eminence in arts, science, literature and warfare were the road to distinction, the Greeks were the first of patriots, of heroes, of painters, of poets and of philosophers. Now that craft and subtlety, adulation and intrigue, are the only paths to greatness, these same Greeks arewhat you see them."

ANASTASIUS.

IN

ART. I.-The Book of Enoch the Prophet, now first Translated from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library By Richard Laurence, LL.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, &c. 1821. 8vo. pp. xlviii and 214. Oxford, printed-sold by Rivingtons. N the Epistle which bears the name of Jude, the brother of James, a passage occurs, ver. 14, in which a prophecy of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is alluded to: "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Several of the fathers, among whom are Irenæus, Origen, Tertullian and Jerome, speak of a book, by some received as canonical, by others classed with apocryphal writings, in which visions and prophecies of Enoch were contained; and it appears to have been extant in Greek as late as the 8th century of the Christian era, when a long extract was made from it by George Syncellus. This quotation was published by Scaliger, in his Notes on the Canon Chronicus of Eusebius, but to this day the Greek work itself has never been found; and as the passage preserved by Syncellus did not happen to contain the words cited by the author of the Epistle of Jude, it remained uncertain whether it was the same book which both these writers used. It has been preserved from destruction by the singular circumstance that the Abyssinian Church has received it into its canon, where it stands immediately

before the book of Job. Ludolf had

heard of its existence, but was disappointed in his expectation of finding a genuine copy of it in the Royal Library at Paris; and the very fact that such a work formed a part of the

Abyssinian canon was doubted of, till Bruce brought three copies of it with him from that country. One of these he presented to the Royal Library of Paris, another to the Bodleian Library, and the third, which formed a part of an Abyssinian Bible, he retained himself. The learned orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy, published in the Magasin Encyclopédique, a translation into Latin of some parts of it, but to Dr. Laurence belongs the honour of being the first to exhibit a complete version of it, from the MS. in the Bodleian. The cultivators of the Ethiopic are so few, that, whatever we may think of the value of the book, or of his arguments respecting it, we cannot withhold our acknowledgments from him for enabling us to form a judgment for ourselves upon a work which has excited so much curiosity and discussion.

That the work which Dr. L. has

translated is really the same which was known at the time when the Epistle of Jude was written, and afterwards as the Prophecy of Enoch, can scarcely be doubted. The passage quoted above exists in it nearly word for word:

"Behold he comes with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon them, to destroy the wicked, and to reprove all the carnal for every thing done and committed against him." which the sinful and ungodly have Considering that the English is a translation of a translation, the slight variety observable here will not be urged against the identity of the two passages. The same argument applies to the allusions of Irenæus, Origen and Tertullian, and the extract of Syncellus, all of which correspond to passages in the work now translated. Interpolations but it appears certain that it is in the may very probably exist in it, main the work which was known in the early ages as the Book or Prophecy

of Enoch.

The leading fiction of the work, on which its visions and prophecies are strung, is, that Enoch being taken up from the sight of the children of men, was permitted to behold the wonders of heaven and hell, of the universe and