injurious enemy than the tyrant of Sparta, invited the Romans to their assistance. Much contest ensued. Nabis was not easily subdued, though defeated both by the Romans and by Philopoemen, the Achæan hero. He was only conquered at last by the treachery of the tolians feigning to send a party of troops to his assistance, who, while exercising with those of Nabis without the walls of Sparta, had orders to attack and destroy him. The Lacedæmonians looked on, with mixed feelings of joy and terror to see their tyrant fall. The Ætolians took advantage of their amazement to march into the city, and rifle the palace of the tyrant of its treasures. The Spartans now perceiving they had indeed an enemy within their gates, and mindful of their former glory, for shame to see the treasures of their city carried off by strangers, placed on horseback a child of the royal blood; and rallying round him as their king, attacked the Etolians and put them without mercy to the sword. The arrival of Philopomen put an end to the confusion, by persuading the Lacedæmonians to peace, and inducing them to join themselves to the Achæan league. B.C. 191.

It is here, nearly two centuries before the birth of Christ, we close the separate history of Lacedæmon: all that remains of her destiny, will be included in the account of the Achæan league, with which, after we have brought the affairs of Athens to the present period, we shall finish the history of the ancient states of Greece. Sparta appears no more in independence, but relying on the Achæans and the Romans alternately, for defence against the other. Already we have seen her submitting without resistance to the arbitrary commands of the most lawless tyrants. The institutions of Lycurgus were no more in force; the greater number of her people were corrupt; and those who had preserved any thing of their former virtues, for that very reason hated and proscribed by the tyrant, were compelled to

abandon their country to the fate from which they could not save her. The monarchical government, the only remnant of her institution, was now to be dissolved.

We have thus looked briefly through the space of Sparta's glory. She was never conquered, and scarcely ever defeated till after she bad relinquished her own institutions, and become internally corrupt. She had never altered her form of government, or changed her line of kings, till the immediate period of her fall. Even now, she was not confessedly subject to any other state, though compelled to yield to their influence, and change the form of government at their desire—the monarchical government being contrary to the Achæan system. As far as invincible and stubborn courage is greatness, Spartans must be considered greatest among the children of men. Their courage was of a very uncommon character. Few in number, exposed in situation, without defence of nature or of art, without so much as a fortress in her territories or a wall round her city, the united force of Asia, that laid Athens in ashes, could not reach Sparta; and the more formidable forces of Greece, on every side surrounding and combined against her, could not abase her power. And yet, as we have before remarked, she made no conquests, and gained no permanent extension of her territory. Other nations we find fighting for dominion or for peace. Sparta desired neither, and fought but for glory.or defence. The features of her glory are very different from those that characterize the Roman or the Macedonian arms. We have already. given our opinion of the character of this people. We see in their rugged virtue but little to admire and less to love. Courage and patriotism were perhaps the sum of it-for in respect to their self-denial and the subjection of their natural passions, having no object but their own military glory, which they prefered, we can scarcely name them in the list of virtues; while vices of the grossest and the coarsest kind were countenanced and

approved amongst them. In short, if the history of Sparta is to be exhibited as a picture of mortal greatness, it is a very humiliating one to human nature; and a very mournful one of the entire departure of the children of men, from the laws once written on their hearts by the finger of omnipotence.

REFLECTIONS

ON SELECT PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.

What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me.-PSALM CXvi. 12.

THERE is nothing sweeter in religion than the voice of praise. Perhaps there is nothing more acceptable in heaven. I wish we heard more of it on earth. There does not seem to be an adequate appreciation of the benefits received. Their value, it is true, cannot be measured, but by the duration of eternity; and would outmeasure, were it possible, even that. But enough we know to amaze our spirits with the vastness of what we owe to swell them so big with gratitude, that there scarcely should be room for any other feeling, unless it were the desire to render something for all we have received, though it might be nothing better than an adequate expression of our gratitude. There is no meet return, and there is no adequate expression. But still it is a feeling to be cherished, and to be made more apparent than it is in our ordinary life and conversation. There is not about us that air of grateful contentedness and pious joy, that might be expected under circumstances of so much benefit enjoyed. The ransomed captive, who has doffed his chains, has a gladder countenance than the Christian manumitted from eternal bondage. The legatee of some undue inheritance, goes after it with a lighter heart than Christians travel to

wards their immortality. Those think but lightly of small matters by the way as the mind engrossed with happiness, thinks ever lightly of triffing incommodities. Consider what is the essential happiness of the Christian-his blessings, hopes, and prospects, contrasted with what he has deserved and been redeemed from, and you can scarcely expect other language from his lips than this of overwhelming, bursting gratitude, What shall I render for all his benefits." Contrast it with the language we hear and speak among ourselves, of impatience, discontent, and sadness. And not language only-but such slowness in yielding, in submitting, in giving up our choice to Him to whom our bliss is owing. All this does not look like a sense of benefits enjoyed; and I fear it is the sense, the habitual sense of it, that is wanting. Might we not cultivate it more?

A man's foes shall be they of his own household.MATT. x. 36.

AND his worst foes are of his best beloved-more near and dear to him than the wife of his bosom, or the sisters of his love. They dwell closer with him than the inhabitants of his own mansion. For they are within him, and a part of him; and divide his house in perpetual contention with itself. It is a wonder to hear people complain so much of the opposition' they meet with in their religious course-how they are crossed, and kept back, and put aside from the object they desire to pursue: telling out, sometimes with too much bitterness, the ridicule and censure they have to contend with-the much endurance they are called to exercise, towards those of their own family who do not think with them in matters of faith and practice: in the one case claiming some excuse for their slow progress, in the other some merit for their firmness: or if not that, indulging a quite human feeling, by thus giving vent to its irritations. Little is said meantime of those more intimate and closer enemies, the sins of our own bosoms-habits, passions,

propensities, cherished long and loved, but now proved to be the most dangerous and bitter enemies of our spiritual peace. Yet is there no obstacle in our way like these, and none of which we so much need to complain. Were it not for these, external persecution would prevent us little. The contest may be something hard to bear, especially when it must be waged with those we love. But it is a trifle, a nothing worth the mention, compared to the bitterness of the struggle that goes on within us, from the opposition of unchastened feeling, and the enticements of selfish indulgence; and the thousand other things with which the native possessor of the bosom is armed against the sovereign that has come in to reign there. Much better it would be to complain of these, and charge on these our sufferings. Then instead of boasting, we should be ashamed-instead of excusing, we should condemn ourselves.

Didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares?-MATT. xiii. 27, 28.

IF these words apply to the sinner, allowed for a season to grow up and flourish in the field of God, not less applicable do they seem to the children of God in their imperfect state. It is perpetually questioned among us, why perfect seed produces so mixed a harvest? Why are religious people so inconsistent? Why is that pious person so unamiable? Why is that saint so melancholy? The same answer will suffice-“ An enemy has done this." Religion, or religion's teacher, did not implant these faults, or give birth to these inconsistencies or sour the disposition-or cloud the brow. Its lessons are all pure, all lovely-the flowers of its seed are all beautiful to look upon. "An enemy has done it." Human nature, for ever inimical to the grace that has subdued it-Satan, for ever pursuing the soul that has escaped him-the world, for ever reacting its detected cheats-0 they come-while the incautious spirit has foregone its watchfulness, or grace has left