France, even to her remotest borders, with judicial, executive, and municipal officers, of all grades and descriptions, and exacted from them a rigid adherence to the rules which he prescribed for their control He executed bands of robbers, and drove the affrighted remnants of these wandering hordes to seek shelter in the mountains. He appointed commissioners to repair the public roads and rebuild the bridges. He established regular conveyances for passengers and letters between the principal towns. He struck out a new finan cial system, by equalizing the taxes, and insuring their faithful collection and prompt transmission to the authorized receivers. He restored public credit, and gave an impulse to trade, commerce, manufactures, and the mechanic arts. He imparted new life to science and literature, revived the public schools, and promulgated a comprehensive scheme of popular education. He reestablished the Sabbath, opened the churches for Christian worship, delivered the clergy from prison, and proclaimed freedom of conscience in matters of religion. He organized a novel and orderly police for the prisons. He brought into use some neglected valuable public works, and prosecuted the construction of new internal improvements with vigor. He opened the door for emigrants, long exiled from France, to return to their native land. He even entered the saloons of the voluptuaries of the capital city, and prescribed the fashions of the ladies, which, during the ribaldries of the revolution, had become scandalously indecorous. In a word, during this brief period, and while prosecuting wars and negotiating treaties with half the powers of Europe, he constructed for France, out of the chaotic fragments which the revolution had strown around, a regular government, to be administered upon fixed principles, and by known and responsible agents-a government that protected life, liberty, and property, to an extent which that country had not witnessed for ten years of confiscation, anarchy, and bloodshed.

Nor did Napoleon accomplish these reforms by merely committing the work to subordinate in struments, accompanied with a few general sug gestions to guide their labors. Although he drew around him such talents as Sieyes, Cam baceres, Talleyrand, Fouche, Carnot, Constant, De Tracey, and Say, yet, in civil as in military affairs, his versatile and restless genius superintended the movements of the vast machinery which he had set in motion. Much of the work of reorganization was literally the labor of his own hands-all of it passed under his penetrating eye, and received its final impress and form from his plastic sagacity-and not merely the general outlines, but a large share of the details of the

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various departments of his complicated system of reconstruction, originated in his comprehensive mind. Undoubtedly he often conquered opposition to his plans by the mere force of his will. But his colleagues and ministers more frequently yielded to his views from an absolute and implicit conviction of the superiority of his judgment, or rendered to them that involutary homage which inferior minds always pay to the emanations of a master spirit.

And this was the work of a soldier of thirty years old, who, during the first two years of the consulship, in addition to these immense civil labors, reorganized and placed on a solid and effective footing every branch of the military service-declared war against all the enemies of the republic-conducted hostilities against England, Austria, Russia, Naples, and the Porte-led in person an army over the glaciers of the Grand St. Bernard, precipitated it upon the plains of Italy, and at a single blow, on the field of Marengo, crushed the flower of Austria, and brought back victory to the standards of France-re-established the Cisalpine republic-ratified a treaty of peace and commerce with America-dictated terms or peace to Austria, the two Sicilies, the Pope, Bavaria, Portugal, Great Britain, Russia, and the Porte-and, at the celebration of the second anniversary of the 18th Brumaire, was hailed by the people of France, amidst the most enthusiastic rejoicings, "The Grand Pacificator of Europe."

The name of the young Corsican adventurer had now become celebrated in every part of the world. At no period in his career did he ever stand so high in the estimation of his countrymen universally, as now. Jacobins, republicans, con. stitutionalists, legitimists, all united to do him honor. He had brought order out of confusionhe had vindicated the supremacy of the lawhe had restored the dignity of government-he had secured to industry its reward-he had rebuilt the altars of religion-he had organized victoryhe had caused the name of France to be respected and feared by cotemporary nations. In a moment of enthusiasm the republic made his consulship commensurate in duration with his life. The transition was easy from the consular robes to the imperial purple.

Though impartial history must record, that, while swaying the sceptre, a love of military glory shaped his civil administration and dictated his foreign policy, yet, in gratifying his lust for conquest he did not always forget that he was the ruler of a great and generous people, who deserved something more at the hands of an idolized chieftain than war. If his administration was characteristic of the ambitious soul and in

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flexible will that animated and directed it, it could boast that it never permitted anarchy to rear its head with impunity. If the law was but too often the transcript of the imperial wish, it was generally executed with impartiality, and was always supreme. The history of his reign proves that he was the author of many salutary political reforms. France boasts of valuable institutions which arose under the shadow of his throne. Her territory displays noble public works, the products of his energetic policy. His code, which not only controls the internal affairs of that vast people, but is daily cited before every judicatory of Europe, and is among the textbooks of American commercial law, is an enduring memorial of his genius and wisdom, and fully justifies his proud declaration, that "when his victories were forgotten, he should stand before posterity with the code in his hand." While wrestling with all Europe in arms, his tireless mind was ever busy in devising schemes to advance the prosperity and elevate the condition of his subjects. His correspondence with his minis ters of the interior, of justice, and of public works, in respect to education, prisons, the judiciary, the police, and roads, canals, and bridges, pour a flood of redeeming sunshine over his character. He declared, and with no little semblance of truth, that his enemies would not give him opportunity to complete those great civil reforms, and those munificent improvements, which he meditated for the advancement and embellishment of his country. The armed offspring, the crowned soldier of a revolution, which signalized its advent by proclaiming fraternity and aid to all peoples struggling to throw away their chains, he complained, not without cause, that legitimate sovereigns would not allow him to be at peace with Europe. The world will ever be divided in opinion upon the question whether he really desired peace or preferred war. That the old monarchs of Europe determined to crush him, will not be disputed. That he as resolutely determined not to be crushed, admits of as little question. Circumstances made the conflict between them a war of mutual extermination, which drenched the continent in blood. However much Napoleon may have sinned against the cause of liberty (and he often trampled it in the dust;) and however much his royal enemies may have eulogized the cause of order (and they filled the world with

their panegyrics;) it will ever remain true, that he was the armed apostle of the untitled masses and they the crowned champions of the privileged classes of Europe. The principles which animated France to stand by him in the contest, were noble. The means which he too frequently employed in their vindication, were selfish. He abused the confidence which his subjects reposed in him; but that confidence sprung from a generous fountain. The doctrines that he emblazoned on the standards he bore in triumph from the Nile to the Baltic, from Madrid to Moscow, were, the right of the people to choose their own form of govern ment and to select their own rulers to administer it. Though conscious of the purity and sublimity of his mission, as is apparent from all his writings and speeches, he had not sufficient self-denial, sufficient grandeur of soul, to execute it with forbearance and integrity. He was too vengeful, too ambitious, too fond of military glory, to be the faithful leader of European democracy in a conflict with ancient principalities and powers.

This approval of the principles that constituted the basis of the contest in which France was involved during the supremacy of Napoleon, will seem strange to those American eyes which have long been accustomed to look at these questions through a British medium. If we listen solely to the speeches of Pitt and Castlereagh; if we peruse only the pages of Scott and Alison, we shall readily give our verdict against Napoleon. But, if we permit Frenchmen to tell their story also, then shall we be prepared to give their great ruler the benefit of that "reasonable doubt" which is tantamount to an acquittal. That he was an ardent lover of France, none but the veriest slaves of prejudice deny. That he desired her supremacy in the scale of European powers, his every act testified. That his memory is enshrined in the heart of hearts of immense masses of the friends of republicanism in that country, recent events have proved. That he was not the vulgar soldier which his enemies have painted him, his true portrait, sketched by the unerring hand of impartial history, has shown. That the doctrines of liberty and equality thrown up amid the fire and blood of the revolution, and proclaimed at the mouths of the imperial cannon, are now slowly but surely working out the regeneration of Europe, coming events, which cast their shadows before them, will demonstrate to posterity.

ANCIENT AND

THE religion of man, in the first ages of the world, was pure Theism. God revealed himself to our first progenitors as their creator and sovereign, and as the creator of all other beings and things. Whether the perverseness of men, previous to the deluge, was such as to result in literal atheism, we have no means of determining. In the renewal of the race, subsequent to the deluge, the religion of man, as at the first, was a pure Theism. Noah and his immediate descendants had abundant means of knowing God, and they regarded him as the intelligent creator and sovereign of the universe. But men at that period, as in every other, " did not like to retain God in their knowledge." They soon forgot him, and forsook him; and God gave up the great mass of mankind to the unrestrained indulgence of their own errors and lusts.

He

The most ancient of the philosophical sects of Grecia Propria was the Ionic. It was founded by Thales, one of the seven wise men of Greece. The successor of Thales was Anaximander. first taught philosophy in a public school, and was the first to commit his philosophical principles and maxims to writing. He was born in the year 610 before Christ, and is generally regarded as the first speculative Atheist. He taught that matter, in its substance or essence, is the only thing which has existed from eternity; that all the appearances in nature, even those to which we attach the names of intelligence and will, are but different modifications or affections of matter; and that these, by an inherent, plastic tendency, are generated from itself. There is no need, therefore, of an intelligent, designing first cause. Matter itself, in possession, from all eternity, of these inherent, plastic tendencies, is competent to the production of all the phenomena in nature.

This species of Atheism is sometimes called the Anaximandrian, after the name of its author. It has also been denominated the Hylopathian, because it traces all the appearances in nature to spontaneously generated affections or modifications of matter. The same form of Atheism was taught by Anaximenes, the successor of Anaxi

mander, and by their joint influence was widely diffused.

The successor of Anaximenes was Anaxagoras. He had the wisdom to discover the lurking fallacy in the reasonings of his predecessors, and the firmness to expose and reject it. He introduced into his philosophy a distinct, intelligent cause of all things. Matter being, as he clearly saw, without life or motion, he concluded that there must have been from eternity an intelligent principle, an infinite mind, which, having the power of motion in itself, first imparted motion to the material mass, and produced the different forms of nature. To Anaxagoras, therefore, belongs the credit of restoring to the Ionic school the pure light of Theism, after it had been obscured and lost by his immediate predecessors.

The Eleatic sect of philosophers belonged to the school of Pythagoras. The most of them were natives of Elia, a town of Magna Grecia, from which the sect derived its name. Among the teachers of this school, we find the second form of speculative Atheism which appeared in Greece. It originated with Leucippus and De mocritus. It was afterwards embraced by Protagoras, who, on account of it, was expelled from Athens, and his writings were burnt. These men were the advocates of pure chance. The universe, they taught, contained nothing but innumerable corpuscles, or material atoms of various figures, which, falling into the vacuum, struck against each other; and hence arose a variety of curvilinear motions, which continued, till at length atoms of similar forms met together, and bodie were produced.

These philosophers, we are told, had many disciples, and, strange as it may seem, the above was the most popular form of Atheism of which we have any account in ancient history. In the next century after it originated, it was taught with great success by Epicurus, and became one of the distinguishing characteristics of his school at Athens.

The Epicurean philosophy made its appearance at Fae in the later times of the republic,

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and was embraced by some of the most distinguished citizens, among whom were Piso, Atticus, and Pansa. The Epicurean system found an eloquent advocate in the poet Lucretius, who, with much accuracy and elegance, unfolded the doctrine in his celebrated poem, de Rebus Naturæ The same doctrine afterwards numbered among its votaries the elder Pliny, Celsus, Lucian, and Diogenes Laertius.

The third in the succession from Aristotle in the Peripatetic school, was Strato of Lampsacus. He taught a peculiar kind of Atheism, which has been denominated, sometimes the Stratonic, from the name of its author, and sometimes the Hylozoic. He supposed every particle of matter to possess within itself an inherent principle of life and motion, though destitute of intelligence; which principle is the only cause of the production and dissolution of bodies. He denied that the world was created by the agency of a Deity distinct from matter, or by an intelligent, animating principle; asserting that it arose from a force or life innate to matter, and to every particle of it. This theory agrees with that first described, the Hylopathian, in representing matter as eternal; but differs from it, in that this ascribes a sort of animal though senseless life to each particle of matter, whereas that ascribed to matter in the general a plastic, generative tendency.

In the school of the Stoics, the intelligent mind was regarded as a celestial ether or fire, which pervaded the whole system, much as the soul of man does his body. Hence the universe was thought to be a species of animal, of which the Deity was the forming, guiding, ruling principle. From this account of the God of the Stoics, it must be evident that there was a strong tendency in their system to gross and palpable Atheism; and this tendency ere long showed itself. There were those among the Stoics, who regarded the universe as more a vegetable than an animal, and the life by which it was pervaded and animated as rather a plastic, vegetative nature, than an intelligent, active spirit. Among these Pseudo-Atheistical Stoics are reckoned Boethius and the younger Pliny.

The Pyrrhonic philosophers cannot be regarded as positive Theists, or positive Atheists; because they were not positively anything. They neither believed in the Divine existence, nor disbelieved it. They were universal skeptics. That everything was to be considered as matter of doubt, was the only point about which they had no doubt.

In the 13th century, complaint was made of infidelity as existing in Italy; but what form it

assumed, or to what extent it prevailed, we have not the means of judging. Considering the intolerable corruptions of Christianity at that period, it would not be strange if thinking men were repelled from it, and driven off into the vortex of Atheism. The high repute and authority of the Aristotelian philosophy may have been another cause of the unbelief complained of.

Although Aristotle was not himself an Atheist, we have seen that Atheism sprang up in his school, and almost under his own eye, in Greece. Strato, the founder of one of the ancient forms of Atheism, was but the third in succession from Aristotle, in the Peripatetic school. It will not be thought strange, in view of this fact, that at a time when the writings of Aristotle possessed at least an equal authority among professed Christians with the holy Scriptures, Atheism should make its appearance in the nominally Christian church.

Infidelity appeared again in Italy, in the sixteenth century. Among its alleged advocates, were Peter Pompanatius and Stephen Dolet; both of whom fell under the power of the Inquisition, and the latter was put to death.

In the following century, atheistical principles were disclosed in different parts of Europe. In 1615, Cosmo Ruggeri, a Florentine and profligate, died at Paris, who confessed, on his deathbed, that he regarded all that we are taught respecting a supreme Divinity, and evil spirits, as idle tales. In 1689, a Polish knight was put to death at Warsaw, under a charge of Atheism.

A few years previous to this, died the celebrated Spinoza, who is commonly represented as a Pantheist, but who (if his principles are correctly reported) was really an Atheist. Spinoza was by birth and education a Jew; and was a great admirer of the Cartesian philosophy. He lived and died in Holland. He taught that "God and the universe are one and the same thing; and that whatever takes place, arises out of the eternal and immutable laws of nature, which necessarily existed, and were active, from all eternity." He says again, that nature itself is God; and by its inherent powers necessarily produces its various movements.” A person holding such sentiments, may call himself Jew, or Pantheist, or what else he pleases; he is in reality an Atheist.

Infidelity made its appearance in England in the sixteenth century; but it had not become matured into the form of Atheism, before the middle of the seventeenth. Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury did not profess to be an Atheist; yet he as well deserves the name as some who have been more open in their professions. He

"represents the human soul as material and || mortal, discards all natural distinction between moral actions, and (keeping God quite out of sight) makes morality to depend entirely on the will of the civil monarch." His example was followed by John Joland, who lived at about the same time with him. Joland published a work entitled Pantheisticon, in which he avows himself a favorer and admirer of the philosophy of Spinoza, which acknowledges no God but the universe.

From England, infidelity was transported into France, in the early part of the eighteenth century. Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderot, assisted for a time by Frederic II. King of Prussia, entered into a secret combination to effect the overthrow of the Christian religion, and with it all the established forms and institutions of civilized life. In their books, prepared for general circulation, and actually circulated to the widest extent possible, we find the following doctrines, some of them standing alone in their naked horrors, others surrounded by sophistry and meretricious ornaments, to entice the mind into their net, before it perceives their nature: "The universal Cause, the God of the Jews and Christians, is but a chimera and a phantom." "The phenomena of nature, so far from bespeaking a God, are but the necessary effects of matter prodigiously diversified." "It is more reasonable to admit, with Manes, a two-fold God, than the God of Christianity." "We cannot know whether a God really exists, or whether there is the smallest difference between good and evil, virtue and vice." "All ideas of justice and injustice, virtue and vice, glory and infamy, are purely arbitrary, and dependent on custom. Remorse of conscience is nothing but the foresight of those physical penalties to which our crimes expose us. The man who is above the law, can commit, without remorse, any dishonest act that may serve his purpose." "The fear of God, so far from being the beginning of wisdom, is the beginning of folly."

The above extracts from the correspondence and published writings of these men may suffice to show the nature and tendency of the dreadful system they had formed. At the same time, they, and others associated with them, were indefatigable in the diffusion of their principles. Their grand Encyclopedia was converted into an engine to serve this purpose. They poured forth tracts and books in great abundance, and, by means of hawkers and pedlars, contrived to scatter them in all the provinces. By degrees,

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they got possession of nearly all the reviews and periodical publications. They instituted an of fice to supply schools with teachers. They acquired an unprecedented dominion over every species of literature, over the education of youth, and over the minds of all ranks of people, and thus prepared the way for those terrible scenes of revolution and bloodsded which were exhibited in France towards the close of the century. "The miseries," says Dr. Dwight, “which were suffered by that single nation, in the course of a few years, have changed all the histories of the preceding sufferings of mankind into idle tales. They were enhanced and multiplied, without a precedent, and without end. The whole country seemed to be changed into one great prison; the inhabitants to be converted into felons; and the ordinary doom of man commuted for the violence of the sword, the bayonet, and the guillotine. It appeared for a season, as if the knell of the whole nation was tolled, and the world summoned to its execution and its funeral: Within the space of ten years, not less than 3,000,000 of human beings are supposed to have perished, in that one country, through the influence of atheism. Were the world in general to be guided and governed by the same principles, what crimes would not mankind perpetrate; what agonies would they not endure?"

The reign of infidelity and terror in France was short; but the consequences of it are likely to be long. The land is far from being purged at present, and whether it ever can be purged but by the slaughter of other millions-the pouring forth of additional rivers of blood-remains to be witnessed.

The infidelity of Germany is of another type from that of France. It is less open, less ferocious, but probably not less deeply seated, or less difficult to cure. It assumes rather the Pantheistic form; is concealed under the specious name of rationalism; and creeps unwarily, not only into the seat of science, but into the holier sanctuary of the church. Not a few of the professed teachers of religion in Germany, it may be feared, are Atheists,

The infidelity of America is almost entirely of foreign extraction. The poisonous seed has been brought here by unprincipled foreigners, who have planted and watered it, and waited till it has brought forth its bitter fruit. The amount of Atheism in the United States, it may be feared, is not small. For the most part, however, it avoids the light. It seeks to hide its horrid features under some other profession or name.