then worshipped were among the
greatest monsters that ever walked the earth. Mercury was a thief;
and because he was an expert thief he was enrolled among the gods.
Bacchus was a mere sensualist and drunkard, and therefore he was
enrolled among the gods. Venus was a dissipated and abandoned
courtesan, and therefore she was enrolled among the goddesses. Mars
was a savage, that gloried in battle and in blood, and therefore he
was deified and enrolled among the gods."

Does Dr. Cumming believe the purport of these sentences? If so, this
passage is worth handing down as his theory of the Greek myth--as a
specimen of the astounding ignorance which was possible in a metropolitan
preacher, A.D. 1854. And if he does not believe them . . . The inference
must then be, that he thinks delicate veracity about the ancient Greeks
is not a Christian virtue, but only a "splendid sin" of the unregenerate.
This inference is rendered the more probable by our finding, a little
further on, that he is not more scrupulous about the moderns, if they
come under his definition of "Infidels." But the passage we are about to
quote in proof of this has a worse quality than its discrepancy with
fact. Who that has a spark of generous feeling, that rejoices in the
presence of good in a fellow-being, has not dwelt with pleasure on the
thought that Lord Byron's unhappy career was ennobled and purified toward
its close by a high and sympathetic purpose, by honest and energetic
efforts for his fellow-men? Who has not read with deep emotion those
last pathetic lines, beautiful as the after-glow of sunset, in which love
and resignation are mingled with something of a melancholy heroism? Who
has not lingered with compassion over the dying scene at Missolonghi--the
sufferer's inability to make his farewell messages of love intelligible,
and the last long hours of silent pain? Yet for the sake of furnishing
his disciples with a "ready reply," Dr. Cumming can prevail on himself to
inoculate them with a bad-spirited falsity like the following:

"We have one striking exhibition of _an infidel's brightest
thoughts_, in some lines _written in his dying moments_ by a man,
gifted with great genius, capable of prodigious intellectual prowess,
but of worthless principle, and yet more worthless practices--I mean
the celebrated Lord Byron. He says:

"'Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile