I knew a true theologian; he was master of the languages of the East, and was instructed as much as possible in the ancient rites of nations. The Brahmins, Chaldæans, Fire-worshippers, Sabeans, Syrians, and Egyptians, were as well known to him as the Jews; the several lessons of the Bible were familiar to him; and for thirty years he had tried to reconcile the gospels, and endeavored to make the fathers agree. He sought in what time precisely the creed attributed to the apostles was digested, and that which bears the name of Athanasius; how the sacraments were instituted one after the other; what was the difference between synaxis and mass; how the Christian Church was divided since its origin into different parties, and how the predominating society treated all the others as heretics. He sounded the depth of policy which always mixes with these quarrels; and he distinguished between policy and wisdom, between the pride which would subjugate minds and the desire of self-illumination, between zeal and fanaticism. The difficulty of arranging in his head so many things, the nature of which is to be confounded, and of throwing a little light on so many clouds, often checked him; but as these researches were the duty of his profession, he gave himself up to them notwithstanding his distaste. He at length arrived at knowledge unknown to the greater part of his brethren: but the more learned he waxed, the more mistrustful he became of all that he knew. While he lived he was indulgent; and at his death, he confessed that he had spent his life uselessly. THUNDER. SECTION I. _Vidi et crudeles dantem Salmonea pœnas_ _Dum flammas Jovis et sonitus imitatur Olympia, etc._ --VIRGIL, Æneid, b. vi, 1. 585. Salmoneus suffering cruel pains I found, For imitating Jove, the rattling sound Of mimic thunder, and the glittering blaze Of pointed lightnings and their forked rays. Those who invented and perfected artillery are so many other Salmoneuses. A cannon-ball of twenty-four pounds can make, and has often made, more ravage than an hundred thunder-claps; yet no cannoneer has ever been struck by Jupiter for imitating that which passes in the atmosphere. We have seen that Polyphemus, in a piece of Euripides, boasts of making more noise, when he had supped well, than the thunder of Jupiter. Boileau, more honest than Polyphemus, says that another world astonishes him, and that he believes in the immortality of the soul, and that it is God who thunders: _Pour moi, qu'en santé même un autre monde étonne,_ _Qui crois l'âme immortelle, et que c'est Dieu qui tonne._ --SAT. i, line 161,162.