Calendar: 1876-1877 Page 560

560 GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 13 What may be gathered from the New Testament and otherwise of the extent and organisation of the Christian Church at the end of this century and of the persecutions from without and the heresies from within under which it suffered III -dfor Eatm $ro$c Lucullus had raised the highest expectations in the Senate who hoped to find in him counterpoise to the over- bearing conduct of Pompeius and defender of the aristocracy inasmuch as he had great reputaiion and influence but he disappointed these hopes and gave up political affairs either because he saw that theyjwere already in difficult position and not in healthy state or as some say because he was satisfied with glory and wished to fall back to an easy and luxurious life after his many contests and dangers which had not been followed by the most fortunate of results He considered this short period of our life on earth as state of trial or kind of school in which we were to improve and prepare ourselves for that eternity of existence which was provided for us hereafter that we were placed therefore here by the Creator not so much to inhabit the earth as to contemplate the heavens on which were imprinted in legible characters all the duties of that nature which was given to us He observed that this spectacle belonged to no other animal but man to whom God for that reason had given an erect and upright form wiih eyes not prone or fixed upon the ground like ose of other animals but placed on high and sublime in situation the mo proper for this celestial contemplation IV -jfar iattn Waptr Ο valley echoing many mournful lay liivers that my sad tears so often swell Ye sylvan beasts and birds ye too that dwell In waters which 'tween flowery margins stray