ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION.

The Committee of the London Young Men's Christian Association have published a lecture by Archbishop Whately, on the above subject, which indisposition prevented him from delivering a introductory to their course for the present season; but which, in manuscript, he placed at their disposal as an expression of his interest in their aims and efforts. The lecture is lucid, able, original, and deserves the attention of every friend of Christianity and of man. It goes to prove not the necessity merely, but the fact, of a divine revelation. The argument is breifly this:-No race has been known to rise in the scale of being, and of civilisation, when left to itself; therefore, the fact of civilisation is proof that there has been an influence from without exerted upon man to give him the first impetus in the career of intellectual and moral progress. A revelation from God alone could give such an impetus; and without it, it seems a moral certainity that man would never have risen above a state of hopeless savageism; the fact that he has risen is proof therefore of a divine revelation.

In his introduction the lecturer draws a parallel between civilized man and the savage, showing that the disparity is so great as almost to produce the impression that they cannot belong to the same species. Physically, socially, intellectually, and morally, he is thoroughly debased; so that, however beautiful may be the poet's and romancist's view of a state of natnre," it is by no means a desirable one, and is in every respect unnatural and vile.

The great and interesting question is then asked! How was civilization originally introduced? Were the earliest generations of our race savages? and if so, how did they rise above that condition? Would they, by the unaided exercise of their own faculties, raise themselves?

The supposition, that, driven by necessity, they gradually invented the various arts of life, however plausible it may at first sight appear, is completely at variance with all history, and inconsistent with the real character of savages. The ancient Britcns, Germans, and Gauls cannot properly be reckoned savages inasmuch as "they cultivated their land, kept cattle, employed horses in wars and made use of metal for their weapons and other instrument. A people so far advanced as that, would not be unlikely under favourable circumstances, to advance further still, and to attain step by step, to a high degree of civilisation.

On the contrary, the savage tribes, indifferent parts of the globe, who have been visited at considerable intervals, by navigators, but have had no regular intercourse with civilized people, appear to have made no improvement. Thus it has been with the savages of Tierra del Fuego, with the New Zealanders, and with the aborigenes of New Holland.

Ancient historical records and traditions confirm the conclusion, that whenever civilisation has been introduced, it has been from without and not from within. "The ancient Greeks attributed to Prometheus, a supposed superhuman being, the introduction of the use of fire; and they represent Triptolemus, Cadmus, and others, strangers from a distant country introducing agriculture and other arts. The Peruvians, again, have a like tradition regarding a person they call Mancocapac, whom they represent as the offspring of the sun, and as having taught useful arts to their ancestors.

Men may wonder how the pleasing picture of savages raising themselves, which may appear so natural to us, has never been realized. This arises from our inability to fancy ourselves exactly in their position an inability as great as that of feeling like a man who has been born blind simply shutting our eyes. A savage is not only feeble in mental powers, but sluggish in the use of those he has; so that even in cases where for years they have seen the operations of agriculture going on, they have not

attempted the cultivation of those roots on which they have depended for subsistence. So indocile are they, that it has required much ingenuity, the utmost patience, and a long time to lead them to avail themselves of the examples and instructions of their benefactors.

"Since it appears, then a complete moral certainty that men, left unassisted in what is called a state of nature, that is, with the faculties Man is born with, not at all unfolded or exercised by education,-never did, and never can, raise themselves from that condition; the question next arising is, when and how did civilisation first originate? How comes it that the whole world is peopled exclusively with savages?"

Such would evidently have been the case if the human race had always from the first been left without any instruction from some superior Being, and yet had been able to subsist at all. But there is strong reason to doubt whether even this had subsistence would have been possible bare ** For, man, is, when left wholly untaught, far less fitted for supporting and taking care of himself than the brutes. These are far better provided both with instincts and with bodily organs, for supplying their own wants ****** At any rate it is plain they could never have risen above that state * * * * * How comes it, that all mankind are not at this day as wild as the Pupuans and Hottentot Bushmen? Ac. cording to the present course of things, the first introducer of civilisation among savages, is, and must be, man in a more improved state; in the beginning, therefore, of the human race, this, since there was no man to affect it, must have been the work of another Being. There must have been, in short something of a REVELATION made, to the first, or to some subsequent generation, of our species. And this miracle (for such it clearly is, being out of the present course of nature) is attested independently of Scripture, and consequently in confirmation of the Scripture accounts, by the fact that civilised man exists at the present day. Each one of us Europeans, whether Christian, Deist, or Atheist, is actually a portion of a standing monument of a former communication to mankind from some superhuman Being. That man could not have made himself, is often appealed to as proof of the agency of a divine Creator; and that mankind could not, in the first instance have civilised themselves, is a proof of the same kind, and of precisely equal strength, of the agency of a divine Instructor.”

"It will have occurred to you, no doubt, that the conclusions we have arrived at, agrée precisely with what is recorded in the oldest book extant. The book of Genesis represents mankind as originally existing in a condition which though far from being highly civilized, was very far removed from that of savages. It describes man as not having been, like the brutes, left to provide for himself by his innate bodily and mental faculties, but as having received at first some immediate divine communications and instructions. And so early, according to this record, was the division of labour, that, of the first two men who were born of woman, one is described as a tiller of the ground, and the other as a keeper of sheep.

The testimony of the celebrated Humboldt is strongly corroborative of this view. "The important question," says he, "has not yet been resolved, whether that savage state, which even in America is found in various gradations, is to be looked upon as the dawning of a society about to rise, or whehter it is not rather the remains of one sinking amidst storms, overthrown and shattered by overwhelming catastrophes. To me the latter seems to be nearer the trutɔ̃ than the former."

"But these views are, as you may suppose, very unacceptable to certain classes of writers. And they have accordingly made vehement and fruitless efforts to evade the force of the arguments adduced. They contend against ✦ what they call the theory maintained, and set themselves to meet the arguments which prove it unlikely that savages should civilize themselves; but they can

Now that they never

not get over the fact, that savages never have done so. can is a theory; and something may always be said-well or ill-against any theory, whether sound or unsound; but facts are stubborn things; and that no authenticated instance can be produced of savages that ever did emerge, unaided, from that state, is no theory; but a statement, hitherto never disproved, of a matter of fact."

An attempt has been made to disprove it, and the case of a tribe of North Americans called the Mandans has heen produced as evidence. They are described as having lived in a walled town, but as having been totally extirpated, when greatly thinned by the ravages of the small-pox, by their more barbarian neighbours. No attempt, however, is made to prove "that these Mandans had been in as savage a condition as the neighbouring tribes; and that they had, unaided raised themselves from it..........And when we are gravely told that it is a very easy thing for the wildest savages to civilise themselves, and learn the arts of life, for, that they have only to begin by building themselves a wellfortified town, it is impossible to avoid being reminded of the trick by which little children are deluded, who are told that they can easily catch a bird if they do but put salt on its tail."

"It appears, then, that all the attempts made to assail our position have served only to furnish fresh and fresh proofs that it is perfectly impregnable. That some communication to man from a Superior Being-in other words, some kind of Revelation-must at some time or other have taken place, 'is established, independently of all historical documents, in the Bible or elsewhere, by a standing monument which is before our eyes, the existence of a civilised man at this day."

"And the establishing of this is the most complete discomfiture of the adversaries of our religion, because it cuts away the ground from under their feet. For, you will hardly meet with any one who admits that there has been some distinct Revelation, properly so called, given to Man, and yet denies that that revelation is to be found in our Bible. On the contrary, all who deny the divine authority of the Bible, almost alwaysset out with assuming or attempting to prove, the abstract impossibility of any revelation whatever, or any miracle, in the ordinary sense of these words; and then it is that they proceed to muster their objections against Christianity in particular. But I trust you have seen that we may advance and meet them at once in the open field, and overthrow them at the first step, before they approach our citadel; by proving that what tney set out with denying is what must have taken place, and that they are, in their own persons, a portion of the monument of its occurence. And the establishing of this, as it takes away the very ground first occupied by the opponents of our Faith, so it is an important preliminary step for our proceeding, in the next place, to the particular evidence for that faith. Once fully convinced that God must at some time or other have made some direct communication to Man, and that even those who dislike this conclusion strive in vain to escapse it, we are thns the better prepared for duly estimating the proofs that the Gospel is in truth a divine message.

"It is not, however, soolely, or even chiefly, for the sake of furnishing a refutation of objectors, in case you should ever chance eo meet with any, or even of satisfying doubters, that I have put these views before you; though no one can think this an unimportant matter who remembers that we are solemnly charged to be "always ready to give to every one that asketh us a reason for the hope that is in us; but beyond this, it must be both highly useful and highly gratifying to a rightly-minded Christian to contemplate and dwell upon all the many marks of truth stamped on a Revelation which he not only acknowledges, but deeply venerates and heartily loves."

A PSALM OF LIFE.

WHAT THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not the goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead last bury its dead!
Act, act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'er head!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

Longfellow.

DOES THE BELIEF OF THE CHRISTIAN OR THAT OF THE INFIDEL AFFORD THE MOST ENJOYMENT IN THE PRESENT LIFE?

Perhaps some one on reading the above question will incredulously exclaim, "The belief of the infidel! What is it ?" And here I may be permitted to remark that it is too much the custom among Christians, when considering the principles of infidels, to express themselves somewhat in this wise:

"Their belief-faith I'm puzzled-I think I may call
Their belief a believing in nothing at all."

I admit that infidels have a

This is a course which I am anxious to avoid. belief, and I desire now to exhibit its nature and influence, and to make an estimate of its relative value, as a source of happiness when compared with the faith of the Christian.

The egoism by which many of the professors of infidelity have distinguished themselves would justify the conclusion that their belief was comprised in the compendious confession of faith, "I believe in myself." But of the majority of intelligent infidels it may be said that they believe in the capacity of the present world to afford instruction and enjoyment, and in the capacity of man to receive knowledge and pleasure. They call upon us to study Nature and interpret her language; to listen reverently to the teachings of science, to obey its dogmas, and to live in harmony with the constitution and laws of the material world. Do this, they say, and then whilst you discharge the duties which you owe to yourself and to society, you will secure the inestimable treasure of a sound mind in a sound body.

Such is the belief of the infidel, and if it is not very exalted it has at least the merit of being intelligible. It amounts to this: Love Nature, study Nature, and live in conformity with Nature, and then you will have attained the happiest state and highest dignity of man.

This belief has found an able expositor in Mr. Holyoake. In his "Logic of Death" he expatiates eloquently upon the pleasures arising from the contemplation of the various objects and aspects of Nature. For him she speaks

"A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.

Nor is this the only class of pleasures accessible to the infidel. Society, with its numerous and varied relationships, attracts and charms him. Domestic life with its elevating endearments, engages his affections. In short everything that is simply human or simply worldly he may possess and enjoy agreeably with his avowed belief.

What advantage then has the Christian? Much every way! Cannot he look forth upon the face of Nature when glowing in the peerless radiance of the sunny morn, or

"When all the starry host, in duteous turn,

Through heaven's still vault their angel watch fires burn,"

and feel his mind expand aud kindle with emotions of unutterable joy as he views the present witnesses of his Maker's glory? Yea, verily! He can hear the floods clap their hands and the hills rejoice, whilst his own soul joins in the universal harmony, and swells the grand antiphone of praise. Who can doubt that Gregory Nazianzen loved the grateful shade of the bending trees, the gentle ripple of,