apt to think that sixteen hundred years ago there were not in this world clear, sarcastic, worldly wits, that there was no Voltaire, no Goethe, no Carlyle, no Rénan. The fact is, the civilisation of the Roman Empire must at least have afforded men of the same type, and Christianity in its cradle had to fight with them as much as now. This passage is a proof of it. Origen deals with it very simply he asks whether Jews and Christians alone are to be compared to frogs and worms, or all mankind, because of God's pre-eminence? If the latter, does Celsus allude to bodily bulk, because if so, elephants are not superior to man for superiority in size. If he refers to vices of the soul, bad Christians and Jews are not more to be compared to a cluster of bats than bad Gentiles, were the latter as great as Demosthenes or Antiphon. But however plunged in vice a man may be, the rational being, having within him what may lead to virtue, can never fairly be compared to a worm. "These outlines and impressions of virtue allow not such a comparison to be applied to beings who are capable of virtue, and incapable of altogether losing the seeds of it." Such is the dignified rebuke of the Christian apologist to a silly argument likely to captivate only degraded minds.

But if Celsus meant to attack the doctrines of Jews and Christians, the comparison, Origen goes on to say, were it admitted at all, might with greater justice be urged against those who have fallen from a sound apprehension concerning God to the worship of brute creatures or of idols; and contrasts with such, in a long passage of great power and beauty, the exalted superiority of those who have attained to the knowledge of the Creator of all, who address their prayers to Him, and do and say everything under the belief that He is the witness of their deeds and the hearer of their words. "Unless perhaps," he asks, with that melancholy scorn which such an antagonist merited, "religion like this, vanquished neither by pains nor by dangers of death, nor by the plausibilities of reason, avails nought to those who have accepted it, that they be no longer likened unto worms, although, before such religion, they were indeed so likened." And ascending yet higher, he demands whether they by whom that sharp temptation of sensuality, which has made many a mind weak and soft as wax, has been overcome, because they were persuaded that not otherwise could they become like God, unless they ascend unto Him by purity, look like the brethren of worms, the kindred of insects or frogs? Whether the brightness of justice, guarding the rights of our neighbours, and maintaining humanity and goodness, is no protection against a comparison so unworthy? And whether

those who wallow in impurity, and even teach that it is not quite wrong to do so, are not worms in the mire, above all, when contrasted with those who have been taught not to take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot, and who know that the rational soul and body depending upon God, are a temple of the God they worship, and become such by a pure conception concerning the Creator, and who, taking care not to defile God's temple by unlawful indulgence, practice purity as the worship of God. As to the claim of the world's being made for us, it is not simply a Christian who can say so, but "he who, as God taught, is clean of heart, and meek, and a peace-maker, and bravely endurant of dangers for religion, such a one may reasonably have confidence in God, and understanding the word in prophecy, may say, God hath foreshown and announced all these things to us that believe."

As to the other part of the objection, that God "deserts the whole universe" for us, this is no doctrine of ours, as Origen quotes several beautiful passages from the Scripture to show; for instance, "Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made" (Wisd. xi. 25). Celsus might have had in view some notions put forward by Jews, but by Christians Jesus is preached to have sojourned upon earth for sinners everywhere, that they might leave sin and intrust themselves to God. That man is not the noblest being in the universe, Christians are quite aware. "God hath stood in the congregation of gods" (Ps. lxxxi. 1); not meaning the gods of the Gentiles, who are demons, for "there be gods many and lords many," as St. Paul says, though "to us there is but one God" (1 Cor. viii. 5). The Angels are above men, and there are diverse orders of them. We are not made, as Celsus says, "in every way like to God." We say not the stars are subject to us, they are types of the resurrection of the just, and if all things do us service, it has been said, "He that will be first among you shall be your servant," whilst Greek poetry is admired when it tells us that—

εἶθ ̓ ἥλιος μὲν νύξ σε δουλεύει βροτοῖς.

There are, perhaps, traces here of peculiar views of Origen, on which this is not the place to enlarge. He can hardly bring himself to notice the buffoonery (for once he calls it by this name, though in general he exercises great self-restraint as a polemical writer) with which Celsus concluded the passage before us. It is what Origen declares that he would not imitate in characterising the disputes of the Greek philosophers themselves. The gene

rosity shown by the Christian apologist in his remarks upon this head, and the importance of them in reference to the whole subject of Pagan literature, incline me to translate them at some length, even at the risk of wearying the reader. After noticing the sort of questions agitated in the Greek schools, in what way the universe was put together, and heaven and earth came into existence; whether souls, being uncreated, are disposed of by God, and subjected to transmigrations, or whether, together with the body, they abide with it or do not abide, he goes on to observe :

A man might, instead of speaking seriously and tolerating the intention of persons who had devoted themselves to investigate truth, say, mocking and reviling, that these people are worms in a corner of the mud of human life, not measuring themselves, and therefore declaring concerning such great matters as if they apprehended them; and that they speak positively, as if they had seen into things which cannot be seen without the inspiration of a higher and more divine power; for "as no man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is in him, so the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. ii. 10). But we are not mad, nor do we compare such great human intelligence (I use the term popularly) occupied, not about the objects which interest the many, but about the investigation of truth, to the movements of worms, or any such-like creatures; but as friends to truth, we bear witness concerning some Greek philosophers (Rom. i. 19-23), that "they knew God, because God manifested it unto them, though they glorified Him not as God, nor gave thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things."-Bk. iv., p. 181.

I shall only remark on this extract, that whilst it shows a kind and noble spirit towards Greek philosophy, the very fact of the condescension it also exhibits, could only arise from the possession of an authoritative standard of truth to which the heathen were strangers.

O.

VOL. XI.

сс

A Trip to the Bass Rock.

THERE are certainly few of our readers who are not well cognisant of the fact that at the entrance of the Firth of Forth-guarding it, as it were, from all invaders-stands the stupendous tower-like rock of the Bass; but as they may not be equally well acquainted with all the interest connected with this indisputable fact, and as the commonest object presents fresh character when microscopically examined, some account of it may not be unacceptable.

Seen even from the shore, which at the nearest point is full two miles distant, the shape and colouring of the Bass Rock is always beautiful, whether steeped in the delicate greys and browns of its sunshiny aspect, or frowning purple in its sullen gloom, or dimly discerned, like some threatening ghost, through the haze. The eye always seeks it with delight, and dwells upon its truncated cone with a fascination that grows and deepens with more intimate knowledge. In crossing the passage to it, about midway the same strange sensation is felt as when in the centre of the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome, a sudden enlightenment as to the stupendous size of the rock, and an interpretation of its gradually enlarging features, by which both the eye and mind receive a sort of shock, like the falling away of scales. At this point the spectator feels ready to receive the quaint old conceit of Hector Boece, when he says that it is "ane wonderful craig risand within the sea, with so narrow and strait hals* that na schip nor boit may arrive bot allanerlie (only) at ane part of it. This craig is callet the Bass, unwinnible by engine of man. In it are coves (caves) als profitable for defence of men as (if) they were biggit be crafty industry. Everything that is in that craig is ful of admiration and wounder."+ About mid-passage too develops the extensive line of fortification, which, like the Castle of St. John in the Bridal of Triermain, had hitherto been received by the eye as living rock; and the horrors of the "Covenanters' Bastille" are for the first time partially realised. As this fortification runs down to the only ledge of rock by which a landing can be effected, and carries its strong curtain-wall along the whole length of the southern and only accessible side, this fortress was one of the strongest holds in the British isles. On this account, as we

* Hals (neck), as the German is at this day.

+ Bellenden's Bocce, vol. i.

shall presently see, it was bought by Charles II. of the Lauder family, at the then enormous price of £4,000, to be used as a State prison.

As we pass under the ruins of the fort, what is called the lesser cave, formed by a startling rift, or chasm, full one hundred feet high, surprises the eye. It is one of the divisions or rifts worked out by the sea in a vein of softer material than the trap-tuff of the rock, and is wonderfully attractive to the eye, which now also begins to take in the whole beauty of the scene. Little by little those sheer crags, four hundred and twenty feet high, beaten, channelled, pierced, lined, frayed, and torn, not only by the whole force of the German ocean and the north-eastern gales, but also by long-gone influences of fire and ice,* seem to penetrate the senses with their awful delight; and by degrees the stranger perceives that every coign and ridge of that broken and coral-like surface-stooped forward, as their historian says, like muskets armed with bayonetst-is covered with sea-fowl; that tier above tier, roll upon roll, ladder above ladder, those flaky white drifts are a living coating of the beautiful gannet and other birds, hovering and brooding over their nests and young.

As any boat nears the rock, the air suddenly fills with flitting and soaring snow, and the singular creaking and laughing cry of thousands of solan-geese, guillemots, razor-bills, and gulls, grate upon the ears and nerves. The absurd habit of popping off guns from the pleasure-steamers and boats, and the landing of still more absurdly-ignorant and heartless tourists, who shoot the birds and capture the eggs and young, has greatly lessened the numbers of the fowl, and threatens in a few years to drive them entirely away, as they have been driven from other parts of Scotland. It is much to be regretted that the owner of the Bass § does not take some interest in preventing the mischief done both by the tourists and those who have charge of the boats, as it is seldom that so fine a haunt of sea-fowl can be studied with safety and ease. The gannet are rarely seen in their breeding-grounds, and actually migrate every year from Ascension Island to the

Hugh Miller says that the peculiar trap-tuff of this interesting coast, Plutonic but stratified, is also scratched and frayed throughout by colossal ice-floes.

+ Hugh Miller.

Seven kinds of sea-fowl still haunt the Bass; the gannet, or solan-goose, razor-bill, the foolish and another guillemot, tern, and two sorts of gulls. It is not too much to say that the laughing gull after a time affects the nerves like the laughter of maniacs.

§ Sir Hugh Dalrymple, Bart., of Luchie, North Berwick.