No serious consideration need be given to those miraculous narratives which exist only in biographies composed in a turgid style of laudatory exaggeration, and not published, or not fairly and fully published, till long after the deaths of the operator, and of the witnesses. An instance precisely in point is the life of Gregory of Neocæsarea, by Gregory Nyssen: another of like kind has also been frequently quoted—the life of St. Martin, by Sulpitius Severus: the life of Cyprian, by his Deacon Pontius, might be included; as well as that of St. Anthony, by Athanasius. In passing, it may be observed that a perusal of the last-mentioned tract, which fills only same fifty pages, would convey a more exact and vivid idea of the state and style of religion in the fourth century, than is to be obtained by reading volumes of modern compilations of church history. At once the piety and the strong sense of the writer, and the extraordinary character of the narrative, give it a peculiar claim to attention. Let the intelligent reader of this curious document take the occasion to estimate the value and amount of the information that is to be received from modern writers—even the best of them, such as Mosheim and Milner, for example, of whom the first gives the mere husk of church history, and the other only some separated particles of pure farina. But can we in either of these methods obtain the solid and safe instruction which a true knowledge of human character and conduct should convey? It may be very edifying to read page after page of picked sentiments of piety; but do these culled portions, which actually belie the mass whence they are taken, communicate what an intelligent reader of history looks for—namely, a real picture and image of mankind in past ages? Certainly not. If nothing be wanted but pleasing expressions of Christian feeling, there can no need to make a painful search for them in the bulky tomes of the Greek and Latin fathers. Nevertheless, with all its defects, Milner's Church History is one of the best that has been compiled. A modern reader, led astray by the malign falsifications of Gibbon, and very partially informed of facts by church historians, has no means of correctly estimating the state of Christianity in remote times; or none but that of examining for * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.