132.-SUMMER. THEN came the jolly Sommer, being dight And now would bathe his limbs with labor heated sore. Such is Spenser's description of the jolly Sommer.' The same vigorous pencil has personified the summer months of June and July: And after her came jolly June, array'd All in greene leaves, as he a Player were; Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace. He boldly rode, and made him to obay: We will select two summer landscapes, whose scenes are laid in regions far apart. Scott gives us a charming picture of the mild graces of the season The summer dawn's reflected hue The water-lily to the light Her chalice rear'd of silver bright; The lark sent down her revelry Her notes of peace, and rest, and love. The American poet, Bryant, draws his images from pine-forests and fields of maize, upon which a fiery sun looks down with "scorching heat and dazzling light :"— It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm Instantly on the wing. The plants around Bright clouds, Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven,— Oh come and breath upon the fainting earth Were on them yet, and silver waters break Into small waves and sparkle as he comes. Contrasted with this picture how refreshing are the "hedge-row elms,"-"the furrow'd land,"-"the russet lawns,"-" the meadows trim,"--" the upland hamlets," of Milton's 'L'Allegro. His "sunshine holiday" is thoroughly English: To hear the lark begin his flight, And to the stack, or the barn-door, By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Rob'd in flames, and amber light, The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes. To many a youth, and many a maid, Hay-making, the half sportive labour of the early summer,-has been charmingly de scribed by Joanna Baillie: Upon the grass no longer hangs the dew; Forth hies the mower, with his glittering scythe, In snowy shirt bedight, and all unbraced, He moves athwart the mead with sideling bend, The carter trudging on his dusty way, And then renews her work with double spirit. And gusty cheese and stoups of milk or whey, Or by the shady side of the tall rick, They spread their homely fare, and, seated round, Taste every pleasure that a feast can give. Old Allan Ramsay has caught the inspiration of one of his most charming songs from the Burns invites his "bonnie lassie" to go forth to the "foaming stream" and "hoary cliffs," when "simmer blinks on flowery braes." He only echoes the general summons to the enjoyment of "the lightsome days" which Nature gives to all her children:— Bonnie lassie, will ye go, will ye go, will ye go, Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, Bonnie lassie, &c. While o'er their heads the hazels hing, The braes ascend like lofty wa's, The Birks of Aberfeldy. Bonnie lassie, &c. The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers Let fortune's gifts at random flee, Bonnie lassie, &c. 133.-PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS. W. CAVE. [WILLIAM CAVE, a distinguished divine and voluminous theological writer, was born in 1637. He was of St. John's College, Cambridge, and received various preferments in the Church, without having reached any very important ecclesiastical dignity, during his long life. At his death he was Canon of Windsor, and Vicar of Isleworth. His 'Lives of the Apostles,' 'Lives of the Fathers,' and 'Primitive Christianity,' are works of standard value and authority.] The Christian religion, at its first coming abroad into the world, was mainly charged with these two things, Impiety and Novelty. For the first, it was commonly cried out against as a grand piece of Atheism; as an affront to their religion, and an undermining the very being and existence of their gods. This is the sum of the charge, as we find it in the ancient Apologists: more particularly Cæcilius, the heathen in Minucius Felix, accuses the Christians for a desperate, undone, and unlawful faction, who by way of contempt did snuff and spit at the mention of their gods, deride their worship, scoff at their priests, and despise their temples, as no better than charnel houses, and heaps of bones and ashes of the dead. For these, and such like reasons, the Christians were everywhere accounted a pack of Atheists, and their religion the Atheism; and seldom it is that Julian the emperor calis Christianity by any other name. Thus Lucian, bringing in Alexander the impostor, setting up for an oracle-monger, ranks the Christians with Atheists and Epicureans, as those that were especially to be banished from his mysterious rites. In answer to this charge, the Christians plead especially these three things: First, That the Gentiles were, for the most part, incompetent judges of such cases as these, as being almost wholly ignorant of the true state of the Christian doctrine, and therefore unfit to pronounce sentence against it. Thus when Crescens the philosopher had traduced the Christians, as atheistical and irreligious, Justin Martyr answers, that he talked about things which he did not understand, feigning things of his own head, only to comply with the humour of his seduced disciples and followers; that in reproaching the doctrine of Christ, which he did not understand, he discovered a most wicked and malignant temper, and showed himself far worse than the most simple and unlearned, who are not wont rashly to bear witness and determine in things not sufficiently known to them; or, if he did understand its greatness and excellency, then he showed himself much more base and disingenuous, in charging upon it what he knew to be false, and concealing his inward sentiments and convictions, for fear lest he should be suspected to be a Christian, But Justin well knew that he was miserably unskilful in matters of Christianity, having formerly had conferences and disputations with him about these things; and therefore offered the senate of Rome, (to whom he then presented his Apology,) if they had not heard the sum of it, to hold another conference with him, even before the senate itself; which he thought would be a work worthy of so wise and grave a council. Or, if they had heard it, then he did not doubt but they clearly apprehended how little he understood these things; or, if he did understand them, he knowingly dissembled it to his auditors, not daring to own the truth, as Socrates did in the face of danger an evident argument that he was οὐ φιλόσοφος, ἀλλὰ φιλόδοξος, "not a philosopher, but a slave to popular applause and glory." Secondly, They did in some sort confess the charge, that, according to the vulgar notion which the heathens had of their deities, they were atheists, i. e. strangers and enemies to them; that the gods of the Gentiles were at best but demons, impure and unclean spirits, who had long imposed upon mankind, and by their villanies, ophistries, and arts of terror, had so affrighted the common people, who knew not what they were, and who judge of things more by appearance than by reason, they called them gods, and gave to every one of them that name, which the |