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    abundant , * and the characters , that would be brought upon the scene , contrasted and interesting . The simple manners and institutions of the first Christians , and their gradual emerging from obscurity into influence and reputation ; the decline of the ancient temples and priesthoods ; the Jews , the Gnostics , the new Platonists , and the still subsisting adherents of a more manly and

    vigorous philosophy ; the Syncretists , who sought for truth in every system , and the Sceptics , who found it in none ; here are the elements of a rich and varied picture , to which genius , at once graphic and philosophical , might impart the deepest interest . Most histories

    hitherto written seem rather materials and prolusions for future histories than final works . We have civil histories with a dry enumeration of political eras and vague conjectures on the causes of actions and events ; military histories , with a recital of battles and sieges ; literary histories , with a catalogue of works and criticisms on authors ; and then , the dullest of all , ecclesiastical

    histories , with a discussion of metaphysical doctrines , and the genealogy of creeds ; while from none of these do we derive a clear and distinct impression of the actual state and circumstances of mankind , of their manners and institutions , of what they thought , felt , suffered , and believed ; a faithful picture of the existing civilization of the period , viewed as a whole , in all its aspects ,

    political , religious , moral , economical , literary , and philosophical . In many learned works there is a mass of materials for such delineations of former ages ; but they are broken and lifeless fragments , not wrought into a whole , or breathing the air of reality . Such is the case with the voluminous collections of Lardner ; and

    we might read the whole of what has been written on ecclesiastical history by the enlightened and philosophic Priestley , without being able to realize to ourselves a single distinct image of the moral and social condition of the period under review . There are exceptions ; Gibbon is a splendid one . We are aware of the

    strong , and in some most important particulars , the well-founded hostility to his name . Yet perhaps no one had a juster conception of the end of history , and , making allowance for his prejudices , which were as strong and as virulent , in the opposite direction , as those of any priest , no one more successfully attained it . That he should have awakened the emulation , and commanded

    the reverence of a Niebuhr is the consummation of his praise as a historian . Unhappily , Gibbon was too much in advance of his age not to detect many of its errors and prejudices , but not sufficiently so to substitute a more enlarged philanthropy and a purer faith for that , which the contradictions and perplexities of

    Chris-* Very valuable assistance in prosecuting such inquiries might be obtained from a series of dissertations in the 6 th vol . of Heyne ' s Opuscule . ' Alexandra Severi Imp . Religions s Mi seel las Probantis judiciuni , ' Parts 1 and 2 , with the Kpimetra . He has one remark , which ought to be attended to by every historian of human © pinion * . ' Refert plurimura , ad aotalis cuiusque morem sentiendi et opinandi narrata queevis exigereet inde constituere / p . 21 o .

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    608 On the Influence of the

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 608, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/24/