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4 .<• 0 ' \ REV. A. J. RYAN, Editor AUGUSTA, Ga., DECEMBER 12, 1868 THE LOST CAUSE. The Banner or the South is now the only weekly paper published, devoted to the “Memories of the Lost Cause.” Will not th'* people of the South and the true people of the North extend to us that sup port which it deserves ? Wc believe they will, and, so believing, wc will continue to labor to make it worthy ot a gen erous patronage. Me ask our friends everywhere to aid us in extending our circulation. Invite your neighbors to subscribe. Send us their names and we will send them specimen copies free. Stories, sketches, and incidents ol the struggle for Southern Independence are respectfully solicited. THE CONVENTION. The importance of promoting the in terests of Southern Agriculture is so apparent, and has been so often and so ably set forth in various Southern jour nals, that we need not urge it here. One of the best ways to benefit this great in terest is through the medium of County Associations and State Conventions. In these* gatherings, views can be inter changed. the various modes of cultivation discussed, and plans arranged lor im provement and progress. The Planters’ Convention, which was called for the 9th of this month, has, wc hope, taken such measures as will encourage immigration to the South, and promote the varied in terests of Agriculture iu this section of the Union. The subjects to be discussed were of the greatest importance, and, no doubt, the result will be commensurate with these. We invite attention, here, to the com munications on Agriculture, in this issue. They are able and interesting, and will, no doubt, be read with general interest. We hope to hear from the writer often, as well as from others who feel disposed to discuss a subject ot so much interest to the whole South. FAIR PLAY. What does the South want ! She asks for no extraordinary privileges or emolu ments. She wants no high position in the Union. All she asks is to be let alone—to work out her own destiny—to promote her own individual interests. Why can’t the North do this much for us ? Why can’t Southern politicians do this much for us ? Wo have humbly bowed our necks to the yoke of Radical tyranny, and became peaceable, law-abiding States and people, despite the “raw head and bloody bones” stories which found their way into Southern and Northern Radical journals. Wc have done all that was asked of us : and in doing that, one ol the States, at least, Georgia, “the Empire State of the South,” has been rescued from the hands ol the ene my and placed in the front rank ot Southern States. If wc can only have fair play, the other Southern States will >oon follow her glorious example. Rut dbuppointed Southern Radical politicians don’t want us to have peace—don't want us to have fair play ; and they have gone on to Washington to inflame the powers that be against vs. Let us hope that they will not succeed—that foul play has had its day, aud that fair play will hence forth be given to us, so that we can work in peace and quiet, promote all the inter ests ot our great section, and secure for it that prosperity and glory which of right ought to belong to us. The Paris papers announce the death if “ the mother of M. Alexander Dumas, the younger. ’’ Why not “the wife of M. Alexander Dumas, the older ?' ! For the Fanner of the South. THE OECLINEAND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, By EDWARD GIBBON. No. 1.. When, iu 1764, amid the ruins of an ancient City, once the heart of a great Empire, Edward Gibbon conceived the idea of writing a History of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” he thought he would accomplish a work which would be a groat addition to the Literature of the world, and secure for his own name a literary immortality. It was an ambitious thought; and, could it have been carried out fully, completely, and impartially, the time devoted to it, and the labor expended on it, would have deserved the literary immortality which it would have inevitably secured. But, when one considers the long period of time over which the subject extended, more than a thousand years; the many and various Nations embraced within the limns of that Empire; the constant and successive invasions of the innumerable hordes from Central Asia; the division of thy Empire into Eastern and Western; the incessant wars of the frontiers, and constant changes of dynasty; the growth of Christianity under the persecutions of Idolatry, and its final triumph; the strug gles of the Church against the various sectaries who denied her faith, resisted her spiritual authority, and persecuted her when they had the power; all of whose doctrines he undertakes to explain and criticise, seeming to iind a special pleasure in dilating upon the want of unanimity among the Christians; the rise and spread of Mohammedanism; the wars of the Saracens, and the Crusades from Spain to the Euphrates, and the final destruction of the Eastern Empire by the Turks; one is compelled to the con clusion that, to do full and complete justice to a subject so multifarious, in six quarto volumes, was an impossibility. Compressed within such narrow limits, it is rather a brief compendium than a his tory, containing a catalogue of the Roman Emperors, and, afterwards, those of the Western and Eastern Empires, with a rapid sketch of their struggles for power, diversified by the growth of Christianity and its divisions, the rise of Mohamme danism, the Conquests of the Saracens and the Turks, and the wars of the Cru sades. Hordes of fierce, gigantic barba rians from the North, myriads of white robed Saracens from the South, mounted Turkomans from the far East, and steel clad Crusaders from the West, march, in turn, across its pages, The sene con stantly changes from the camp to the court, from the court to the camp; but, of the internal, social, or domestic life of the people, the reader learns little. The im mensity of the subject causes sudden transitions from one quarter of the Empire to another, while the reader is frequently carried back three or four centuries to trace the march of some new horde of barbarians, the birth of some newly risen nation, or the rise and doctrines of some new sects, which, from the very com mencement, afflicted Christianity. Events, separated by centuries, are brought al most together in contiguous chapters; while events immediately following, and sometimes consequent upon others, are separated from them by several chapters, so that the connexion of events on the mind of the reader is continually distract ed. and a confused impression left upon his memory. Mr. Gibbon was, evidently, a vain man, in no way embarrassed by any modest diffidence in his own power In some of his notes, he congratulates himself upon the felicity of his delineations of charac ter. lie decides the question how History should be written, and selects from his authorities those on whom he chooses to rely, while he rejects others whose views do not suit him, with the peremptory air of one speaking with authority. > No one can read his work without concluding that lie was no Christian, though he seems to claim to be one Indeed, from his con stant sneers at Christianity, and his un disguised preference for ancient philoso- his idea of the Deity seems to resem ble the Ammu* JHandi of Mr. Jushua Bletsou, Member for Littlecreed, in Sir Walter Scott’s novel, Woodstock. 11 is religion, if it could be so called, was one that imposed no restraint or obligation, and required no prayer, no fasting, no penance, no sacrifice, no Driest, no Temple. His morality appears to have been based upon no principle, with scarcely an outward show of respect t<r the conventional decencies of society. In the tiftv-third chapter, in discussing the merits of the works ol' the Emperor Con stantine Porphyrogenitus, I find the fol lowing sentence : “The Basilica will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version, in the Greek language, of the laws of Jus tinian ; but the sense ol the old civilians is often superseded by the influence c ■ bigotry; and the absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money, unslaves the freedom of trade, and the happiness of private life.” He is fond of the use of the word philosophy, and iutimates, very clearly, that he is a philosopher. It is his reli gion, and seems to imply a rejection of everything that appears to violate the operation of natural law, and every belief at. which he cannot arrive by the process of reason. With him, Religion, in any shape or form, is superstition—Faith, aa absurdity. He sneers at the doctrine of the Trinity, and looks upon the Incarna tion as theological nonsense. Though he exposes the pretended miracles, hypoc risy and vices of Mohammed, he affects to look upon his creed as superior to Christianity in the sublime simplicity of its announcement, “There is but one God.” Throughout the work, wherever the questiou of Religion arises, lie exhibits a bitter hostility to Christianity, and on ail questions between Christians and Pagans, his partiality for the latter is evident. Even in describing their per secutions of the former, he almost be comes their apologist. He represents the Christians as inflated with the pride of fanaticism, looking down with contempt upon their Pagan fellow-citizens, who were better educated and more refined than they, and exhibiting, in their man ner, an arrogance that excited the hatred of the people around them. That flair vanity, pride, and love of notoriety, led them to court martyrdom, aud that the majority might be considered guilty ot voluntary suicide, as they could have saved their lives by merely throwing a few grams of wheat before the statue of Ceres, or pouring out a few drops of wine before that of Jupiter. In the struggles of the Church with the various sectaries, which appeared aud disappeared one after another, like the dissolving views of a diorama, lie finds an opportunity for exhibiting his contempt for the folly, credulity, fanaticism, and cruelty of all, but he relieves his special hatred for the Church. He persistently reiterates the charge of Idolatry against her—her hierarchy are haughty, ambi tious, overbearing, and licentious; her Priests are pedlars in rites and jugglers in pious frauds; her monks fanatical brutes. In the choice of evidence in re lation to matters as between Christianity and Paganism, or between the Church and the Sectaries, he sets down Catholic writers as unreliable, unless where they are sustained by Pagan authority. In reference to some authorities, he says, in one of bis notes ; “The invectives of the two Saints might not deserve much credit, unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and irnpaitin 1 infidel.” In reference to Spondanus. a celebrated writer in the beginning ot the 1 1 th cen tury, he speaks as follows: “In the Hungarian Crusade, Spondanus has been my leading guide. He has dili gently read and carefully compared the Greek and Turkish materials, the histo rians of Hungary, Poland, and the \V est. His narrative is perspicuous; and. where he can be free from a religious bias, the judgment o<‘ Spondanus is not con temptible.” After availing himself ol Ihe labor, learning, and research of that writer, whose merit he seems to acknowdedge, why does he speak so slightingly towards the close ? Henry Spondanus was a native of Navarre, reared a Protestant, and educated at the Reformed College tit Oithes. He held the office of Master of Requests at the Court of Beurne, under Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV of France. In 1595, in his 28th year, he resigned his office, united himself to the Catholic Church, as his brother, also a man of high literary reputation, had previously done; went to Rome, entered into orders, and, afterwards, became Bishop of Premiers, iu France, in the reign of Louis XIII. In reference to the same writer, he says, in another note : “The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and Religion are concerned.” Even when compelled, as it were, to admit some fact creditable to the Church, or its hierarchy, he invariably accompa nies it with some assertion that detracts from the merit of the admission, and shows the spirit by which he is actuated. In speaking of the efforts of Pope Nicho las V, in the 15th Century, to promote learning by collecting old manuscripts ot the writers of antiquity, and having them transcribed and deposited in the Library of the Vatican, he says : “And such was the industry of Nicho las, that, in a reign of eight years, he formed a Library of five thousand vol umes. To his munificence, the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenoplion, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucy dides. Heroditus, and Appinn; of Strabo’s Geography; of the Iliad: of the most valuable "works of Plato, and Aristotle ; ol Ptolemy aud Theophrastus; and of the Fa the is ot the Greek Church. In the above, instead of “he formed a Library of five thousand volumes, it should have been written, he added five thousand volumes' to the Library; for that was iu existence long before his time: but this is one of the writer’s ingenuous ways of insinuating a lie, by producing the im pression that there was no Library in the Vatican until that time. The above in formation—which, as far as it is correct, properly finds its place in History—lie gives on the authority of writers, to whom he refers in the notes. The following, however, with which lie prefixes the above, and for which he gives no authori ty whatever, is not History; ‘-imply, be cause it is not true: “The Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for super.>tition and forgery, was daily replenished with more precious furniture.” This .-weeping calumny, which he writes on his own authority, shows how utterly unfit he was to write such a I listory. In speaking of Ecclesiastical Govern ment, especially in reference to the Popes, he says ; “In the trammels of servile faith, he (the Pope) has learned to believe, because it is absurd; to revere all that is con temptible, and to despise whatever j might deserve the esteem of a rational J being: to punish error as a crime; to re- J ward mortification aud celibacy as the j fiist of virtues: to place the Saints of tlie ; Calendars above the Heroes ot Rome and ! the Sages of Athens; and to consider the j missal or the crucifix as more useful j instruments than the plough or the j loom ” Perhaps, the Popes, not being philoso- • pliers, may not have agreed with 31 r. : Gibbon in his notions*of what is absurd, contemptible, or deserving of esteem. Perhaps, they may have known as well as he, that those heroes of Rome and Sages of Athens, where they were rot Idolaters, | were, generally, Atheists; and that their habits of life would be deemed scaudalous in any Christian country. Perhaps, the preference, which he deemed “unworthy,” they thought becoming decent men and good Christians; and, perhaps, they could not see any grounds for comparison between a missal, or a crucifix, and a plough, or a loom. If the Popes have been old and feeble in mind and body, “and without children to inherit,” as he shrewdly observes; “drawn from the Church, and even the Convent; from the mode of education and life the most ad verse to reason, humanity, and freedom,” why did lie not explain how the Papacy, under such Rulers, with an Army scarcely strong enough to preserve the peace, and without a Navy, surrounded by grasping and unscrupulous neighbors, should have lasted for more than a thousand years ' Thev have been martyred, exiled, and murdered ; their territory devastated, and their chief city taken by Emperors, Kings, Princes, Barons, and so-called Republi cans; but most of the latter have lived wretched lives, and died violent deaths; while the former returned, the* territories were restored, and the Papacy survived. He affects to believe in the existence of a God; but, indenyinga Revelation and a Providence, he really denies a living God. For man to believe that a few, poor, illiterate fishermen of Galilee, the most despised people of their time, without power, influence, birth, education, or wealth, should have succeeded iu organ izing au institution, that, without phy sical three, by moral suasion alone, not by shedding the blood of its enemies, but by piety, offering up its own, should have overthrown the oldest system of Religion then known, lcndered respectable by the progress of its followers in Literature and Philosophy, in Science, and the Arts; should have taken captive the mightiest Empire that History has ever recorded; should have converted Nation.-, civilized barbarians, introduced the purity of Christian morality iu the place of Heathen licentiousness, and have planted, watered, and cultivated the seeds that grew up into the elements of modern civilization, should not only have maintained its vitality, but overcoming the rapacity of power and the violence of revolution, by its passive resistance, and the licentious ness of the world; by its moral teaching, should have outlivated Empires, and Dynasties, aud Nations, aud exhibited throughout, amid the throes of Empire and the storms of time, a steady, healthy, progressive growth ; while, to-day, more widely extended than ever, as fresh and more vigorous than ever, she goes about doing good, healing the sick aud burying* the dead, feeding and comforting the poor, aud educating the ignorant, sympa thizing with the weak and the humble, and rebuking the proud; and. that all this should have been done by mere human means, requires a stretch of credulity far less consistent with reason and common sense than to believe in the existence of a God and a superintending Providence. The so-called Philosophy of the 1 eighteenth century wa» the offspring of pride, vanity, and self-conceit. It ( yj'y ited a morbid appetite for notoriety {■ reviving the old worn-out skepticism of Heathen Philosophy, and presenting it! dead speculations to the world cs ion,- tiling new. It sought to unsettle and de stroy all old opinions, aud all f a j t p p Religion, but had nothing to substitute io their place. By vague and empty deola" rnation in favor of the freedom of th. human mind, and the rights and libertie of the people, it sought to remove every restraint upon human will and huma passion. But human reason, which a; first, seemed disposed to accept tie* de ac j philosophy of Heathenism for a hew Faith, revolted at the atrocitie- which followed its first success. The wi.-e anc j the good saw the horrible consequence.*- to which it led, and raised thmr voices against it, though the severest commenta ries that could have been written on th, lives and characters of its writers, may b fouud in the results to which their teachim led. Mr. Gibbon’s hostility to Christianity is apparent throughout his whole work It leads him to speak,even of Idolatry,;; terms almost of eulogy. He seeing h, look with indulgence- on the deification of the Sages and Heroes who had lived or died for the benefit of their Country; who, he says, it was universally confessed, deserved, if not the adoration, at least, the veneration ot ali mankind. He seems desirous of throwing a halo of poetry around it, when lie speaks of the roman tic beauty of a Religion which gave each stream and valley, each grove and moun tain, its special divinity; and adds, that “The elegant Mythology of Homer gave a beautiful and almost regular form to the Polytheism of the z\ncient World.” Where a learned man, who claimed to be a Sage aud a Philosopher, could find beauty, poetry, or romance in a Religion whose chief deities, according to the ad mission of their own worshippers, wen addicted to the lowest and most vulgar vices, I cannot conceive. Jupiter anti Apollo were notorious for their indiscrinii nate amours. Mercury was a thief and Bacchus was a drunkard; while their as sociate goddesses were “no better than they should be.” Had these so-called deities been men, and lived in our time, they would have beeu considered fi: sub jects for the gallows, the penitentiary, and the guard-house. So much for the beauty, poetry, and romance of Heathen Mythology. But, not content with fancy painting the rotten carcass of Ancient Idolatry, he undertakes, even in the very face of the records before him, from which his own work was compiled, to give it credit for religious toleration. lie says “Such was the mild spirit of Anti juity, that the Nations were less attentive to th difference than to the resemblance o. their religious worship.” Yet that spirit of Antiquity which he considered m “mild,” inaugurated ten persecution, against the Christians during the lir.o three centuries. In like manner, he seems to Bui Mohammedanism, iu some resects, superior to Christianity. He says : “The Christians of the seventh centur. had iuvariablv relapsed into a sembhuci of Paganism; their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the Temples oft: East; the Throne of the Almighty wa darkened by a cloud of Martyrs, and Saints, arid Angels, the objects of popula veneration.” - ( Thus, it appears, that, in Christianity he can see no beauty, no poetry, no romance in its Angels; no wisdom in if' Spirits; no heroism in its Martyrs. IK continues : “The mystery of the Trinity and th*' Incarnation appear to contradict th* principles of the Divine unity. In their obvious sense, they introduce three eqn:.- Deities, and transform the man Jesus in: the substance of the Son of God. ’ “The creed of Mohammed is free from suspicion or ambiguity, and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God. The Prophet of Mecca rejected the wui ship of idol> and men, of stars and p lance on the rational principle, that, whateve: risc> must set; that whatever is born uvl-i die; that whatever is corruptible mi - decay or perish.” “These sublime truths, thus announced in the language of the prophet, arc firuu. held by the disciples, and defended vatu metaphysical precision, by th** mtu preters of the Koran. A philosopin Theist might subscribe the popuhfr < rt of the Mohammedans; a Creed too -’.ioK perhaps, for our present faculties. “During the month of Rarnad. n, Mohammedan Lent, from the rising the setting of the sun, the Mus>uhnui abstains horn eating and drinking, worn - and baths, and perfumes, from all non ishment that can restore his stren.: from all pleasure that can gratify senses.” This twelve hours Fast, lie call ful restraints,” and says, “the by whom they arc enacted, canno* >u.