Literary Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2 May 1848, Page 4

Literary Extracts.

Fable of the Seven Sleepers.—Among the insipid legends of ecclesistical history, I am tempted to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers; whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals. When the emperor Deem* persecuted the christians, seven noble youths of Epbcsut concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain; where they vveie doopied to perish by the tyrant, who gave ordera that the entrance should be firmly secured with a pile of stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. At the end of that time the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain hail dascended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice : the light of the sua darted into the caveru, and the Seven Sleeptxs were permitted to nuakc. After a slumber, as they thought of a lew Lcur-, they were pressed by the ca.is of buoger; and re-chod that JumbhckUi.. one of then number, should secretly return to the cit\, to purchase bread for the use of his couii'iMons. The youth (if we may still employ th.it anpel!ation x could no li'jtser recosmi'? the once famil-ar aspect of hts native country ; «.n'i M. w 's tauea«cd by the appcoiaiuc of'a U o *«. viectcd ov«r the prm*

cipal gate of Epheeui* His singular dresi, and obsolete language, confounded the baker, Co whom be offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspiciou of a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge* Their mutual inquiries produced the amazing discovery, that two centuries were alcrost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, as it is said, the emperor Theodoslus himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story, and at the same instant peaceably expired. The origin of this *narvellous fable cannot be ascribed to the pious fraud and credulity of the modem Greeks, since the authentic trauitiuu may be traced within half a century of the supposed miracle. James of Sarug, a Syrian bishop, who was born only two years after the death of the younger Tbeodosius, has devoted one of his two hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of the young men of Ephesus. Their legend, before the end of the *ixth century, was trauslated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions cf the cast preserve their memory with equal reverence; and their names ate honourably inscribed in the Roman, the Habyssinian, and the Russian calendar. Nor has their reputation beei confined to the christian world. This popular tale, which Mahomet might l«arn when he drove his camels to the faits of Syria, is introduced, as a divine revelation, into the Koran* The story of the Seven Sleepers has been adopted, and adorned, by the nations, from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion , and some vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the remote recesses of Scandinavia, This easy and universal belief, bo expressive of the sense of mankind, may be ascribed to the genuine merit of the fable itself. We imperceptibly advance from youth to age, without observing the gradual, but incessant, change of human affairs ; and even in our larger experience of history, the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of causes aijd effects, to unite the most distant revolutions. But if the interval between (wo memorable {eras could be instantly annihilated ; if it were possble, after a momentary slumber of two hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a spectator, who still retained a lively and recent impression of the old, his surprise and his reflections would iuruish the pleasing subject of a philosophical romance.—Gibbon.

O'Connbll's Education.—O'Conaeirs education at St. Onit-r was narrow and sectarian; in no seminary were hierocratic doctrines more rigidly incu'cited ; and the duties and labours of his arduous profession prevented him from having these notions corrected by general reading anil literary acquirements. O'Conneil was neither a sound nor an elegant scholar; his clnssical attainments were below the average of a schoolboy; in history he had nad little beyond the compilation with which men of large business are too generally contented; and though be had some tatte of mental and moral philosophy, it was never cultivated* He relied entirely for his success on his own tneotal resources, and they were unquestionably vast; never did any man make so great show with so limited a stock of information. I' was not until he timed author, and gave the world his puerile Histoi y of Ireland, that men diseovere 1 how scanty was the stock on which he traded. The theology of St. Omer, which attributed a sanctity, and almost an impeccability, to the sacerdotal character, was the predominant feeling of O'Connell's life ; he honestly believed that the best service he could render Ireland wa? to increase and strengthen the power of the Catholic piiesthood ♦ and it is therefore no wonder tiat be received, through life, the zealous support of that body, which is indebted almost entirely to him for its present exis'ence as a power in the state.—Reminiscences of Darnel Q'Connell, by a Mimster Farmer.