that Creon had her buried alive in the same tomb as her brother, but Sophocles states she was shut up in a subterranean cave, where she killed herself. Stoicism, or that indifference to pain which was frequently the exhibition of a courageous hypocrisy, considered suicide as a virtue. Even the moral and the virtuous, in their ignorance, forgot their responsibility of life to the Giver of it, "nor remembered that before they left the world they were bound to return what God had done for them in it." Hence we must not impugn the memory. of Antigone, if she even acted, according to the questionable testimony of a poet, from the evil tendencies of Grecian superstition. The event is worked up by Sophocles with the greatest pathos and the proper measure of retribution meted out to Creon. Hæmon, the lover of Antigone, hearing of her death, seeks her in the cayern, and kills himself by her side. Theseus makes war upon the tyrant and slays him, and the whole race of the Theban dynasty is made an exhibition of the Divine judgment upon error.

The elements of the story, such as they present themselves to the general reader, will be easily identified with those upon which many modern moralists and dramatic authors have founded their striking idealities. But the disposition of Antigone, her actions, nay, even as the tragedians have represented, her speech, condense, as in a focus, the rays of many lessons, giving potency to all. She is exhibited to the mind's eye as a very woman," loving and filial as

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Cordelia ; pure and devoted to the impulses of a higher destiny as Dorothea, the virgin martyr of Massinger; with Portia's intellect, and Arria's courage. It may be that the poets drew upon their imagination, and that these virtues, rare in their separate excellence, were made wonderful by their combination in one ideal; but let the lesson only be that she suffered well, it is enough. Past ages have admired, and in some small degree, though so great demand is not made upon unselfishness, let the present copy her. She remains a concentration, a statue of harmonized principles, all tending to the development of the consistent beauty of virtue. If the image be of stone, still the rules of its creation accord to those of life; but the predominant charm of the portraiture of Antigone is, that it contains the soul of love,-unworldly, selfdenying, constant, and pure !

Panthea.

ABOUT B. C. 567.

IF ancient history were merely a collection of events, and did not present constant instances that human nature, like its Divine Creator, is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," a great portion of its instruction would be superseded. It is from our tracing perpetual examples of virtue, adapted to every age, whatever be the clime or the circumstance, that we derive the impressive lessons that there is nothing new under the sun; that neither prosperity nor misfortune can exceed the limits which individuals have already experienced; and that whatever man has done or suffered, he may, when called upon, do or suffer again.

Cyrus, king of the Medo-Persians, born about B.C. 590, was one of those remarkable conquerors who are raised up by Providence for special purposes, so that he is even mentioned in Scripture by name (Isa. xliv. 28; xlv. 1; Ezra. i. 1), above one hundred years before