representatives of the race had penetrated into Thrace, Macedonia, and the Morea. Their stationary life and contact with the cultivated Greeks had rendered them civilized in comparison with the ancient allies of the Huns and Bulgarians. In Moesia they had acquired partial if not entire independence of the Greeks; but long disused to the hardy life of their ancestors, could not withstand the irruption of the Bulgarians from the banks of the Volga. And now occurred one of those remarkable social revolutions which have frequently taken place in the history of conquered nations. The northern barbarians overran the Roman world, but in the end Roman civilization subdued the stubborn barbarians. The warlike Bulgarians easily established their authority over the peaceful Slaves, but having soon acquired a taste for the more cultivated manners of their subjects, gradually adopted their language, customs, manner of life, and at last their religion-converting themselves, in fact, into Slaves. The name alone was retained, as if to refer us back to the unquestionable origin of the race. Though differing in language, habits, and national sentiments, the Bulgarians and Slaves became fused into a single people. for the conversion of their dangerous neighbors. We have already alluded to the misfortunes which inclined Boris to adopt the new religion. One of his sisters, long detained as a prisoner at Constantinople, had been instructed in Christianity by the Empress Theodora, and on her return to Bulgaria became an eloquent advocate of the faith. A Greek monk named Theodore Koupharas, for whom the sister of Boris was exchanged, had, although a prisoner, succeeded in converting a number of Bulgarians. It is related that the prince desired of the Emperor Michael a painting for his new palace, which should strike with terror all who beheld it. Methodius, who, like the monks of that age, made pious pictures, was sent to execute the work. Uniting the skill of an artist and the fervent piety of a missionary, he chose for his subject the awful scene of the last judgment, in which kings, princes, and people were represented as standing in the presence of God, armed with the terrors of his infinite majesty and justice. The barbaric monarch was overwhelmed at the sight, and resolved to win the favor of heaven. In the year 861 Michael undertook an expedition against Bulgaria. The circumstances of the campaign are not reem-lated, but it terminated in the baptism of Boris by Methodius, the emperor himself being sponsor. The country of Zagora, along the range of the Haemus, was given up to the new convert as a baptismal donation, it having been partially ceded to the Bulgarians by Justinian II. Boris himself assumed the name of Michael. The majority of the Bulgarian nobles opposed to the new order of things refused immersion at the command of the prince. They excited the people to rebellion, and besieged Boris in his castle; but having been defeated by the supposed interposition of a miracle, fifty-two of the leaders were put to death, and the rest of the nobles, together with all the Bulgarians, received baptism. At the great council held in Constantinople in the year 869, the Bulgarian bassadors declared that their ancestors had found Greek priests in Moesia at the time of its conquest. The Bulgarians, however, were opposed to Christianity. It is said that Krumus sacrificed men and animals to a demon, and performed mysterious rites upon the shore of the sea. The immense number of Byzantine prisoners carried into Bulgaria, including, in many instances, monks and priests, must have kept alive the germs of Christianity. Mortagon, provoked by the Franks and Germans at the West, sought to eradicate the system entirely. Bishop Manuel and a multitude of believers perished during the terrible persecution which characterized the reign of this monarch. The Bulgarians south of the Danube appear to have maintained intercourse with their brethren remaining on the banks of the Volga, and the introduction of Mohammedanism from that quarter may have rendered them more averse to Christianity than they would otherwise have been. In times of peace the missionary zeal of the Byzantines induced them to labor We must here interrupt our narrative to mention those two devoted missionaries who contributed most to the spread of Christianity in Eastern Europe, and whose names are still venerated wherever the Gospel is preached. Cyril and Methodius were born at Thessalonica, of Greek, or as some suppose, of Slave parents. Cyril, the elder of the brothers, received, from his great learning, the title of philosopher. In the populous and commercial city of their birth they doubtless acquired a knowledge of several languages, but their vernacular appears to have been the Slavic, then spoken in Macedonia and many parts of Greece, just as the traveler of to-day hears the Illyrian, one of the five tongues derived from the language of the ancient Slaves, spoken by shepherds watching their flocks on the Hill of Mars. Methodius became a monk, and Cyril, having repaired to Byzantium, was ordained as priest. Andrew, the first called of the Twelve, is said to have appointed the Bishop of Constantinople, and reaching Scythia by following the banks of the Dnieper, to have planted the cross on the hills of Kieff. Inspired by this apostolic example, Cyril resolved to carry the Gospel to the Northern barbarians. He first visited the Kosaren, near the Palus Mæotis, and returned not long afterward, bringing with him the remains of St. Clement, a Roman bishop, who had suffered martyrdom in the Tauric Chersonese. Methodius joined Cyril in Byzance, and The Slaves do not appear to have had Cyril and Methodius resolved to open the 215 eloquence, to aid them in the work. Cy- The Slaves of the Byzantine empire Pope Nicholas, anticipating the change about to take place in Bulgaria, and the Eastern and Western patriarchates, destruggle for that province between the manded of the Emperor Michael, in 860, ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Epirus, Macedonia, Bulgaria, in reality over all the Illyrian triangle excepting Thrace. The firmness of the pope in the affairs of the Church, the disgraceful conflicts in Constantinople between the temporal and spiritual powers, the fear that ecclesiastical subjection to the cunning Greeks might be employed for political purposes, and more than all else the successful intrigues of Latin priests in Bulgaria, induced Boris, in 866, to send embassies to Rome and the court of Louis, announcing his conversion to Christianity, and requesting priests, bishops, religious books, and sacred vessels for use in worship. Pope Nicholas immediately dispatched the bishops Paul nalia of worship, and elaborate answers to and Formosus, with priests and parapherthe one hundred and six questions propounded by Boris upon matters of faith and doctrine. The old quarrel concerning the two natures appears to have troubled the mind of the prince. Among other things he had inquired of the papal authority whether the baptism of a number of Bulgarians The emperor of Germany also by Catholic laymen could be regarded as valid. sent the Archbishop of Passau with a large number of priests, but the pope's embassy having reached Bulgaria first, the other was constrained to return home. The Greek prelates were also obliged to leave the country, so completely in the ascendant for a time was the Catholic influence, notwithstanding the efforts of the patriarch. At the General Council of 869 and 870 the Greeks prevailed, and Bulgaria was incorporated into the patriarchate of Constantinople. The Emperor Basilius and the Patriarch Photius sent the Archbishop Theophylaktos with a large number of the Greek clergy to possess the new ecclesiastical domain, whereupon the Latin prelates returned to Rome. The excommunication of Photius terminated forever papal rule in Bulgaria. WE ENTERING THE TROPICS. E were bound, in a sailing vessel, for the West Indies, and had reached the vicinity of that latitude which, bearing the name of the Tropic of Cancer, technically defines the northern limits of what are called the "trade winds," whose direction and sustained currents from the eastward are so beautifully modied in their course and tempered in their strength by the influence of the sun in its annual transit from south to north and from north to south. To "catch the trade," as the sailors term it, or to get within the range of its auspicious currents, the regular undulations of the gentle surges it creates, and the soft glowing atmosphere in these ardent regions, is always an event that is looked for with interest both by mariners and passengers, and especially after a boisterous interval in that dreaded locality, the Bay of Biscay, the perplexing traverse-courses of adverse breezes, or the tedium of a protracted calm. The latter of these phases of the ocean's mutability is of common occurrence in the immediate outskirts of the tropics, and the vessel, now checked in her career, lay stagnant upon the sleeping bosom of the waters. It would be difficult to conceive a more perfect calm. Not a cloud marred the soft even tone of the vast blue firmament, mellowed and enriched with a glowing tinge by the warm, settled flood of unimpeded light that permeated the arch above and around us; while the effulgent sun steadily pursued his course, indicating the progress of time upon the earth as it measured off the allotted portion of a day. Not a breath disturbed the smooth unruffled surface of the deep; and at night the scintillating portraiture of the starry host it reflected, gave a sort of mysterious charm to the solemn stillness which pervaded the mighty panorama of repose. The heavens and the waters seemed to meet, each to the one a counterpart of the other; and silence was the more impressive to the beholder, from the total inaction of the vessel, and the speechless homage which the enchantment claimed of those who waked to watch while others slept. "So sweetly did the ocean smile, A floating mirror she might be, And you would fancy all the while New heavens in her face to see; The moon herself was drawn so well, As there she did her picture view, That all our eyes could hardly tell Which was the false moon, which the true; And as we downward cast the eye, She seem'd to have fallen from the sky." But before the glittering host had paled in the first faint gleams of approaching dawn, it became partially obscured by heavy rolling clouds, which gradually ascended toward the zenith from the southward and westward, to confront the vivifying beams of the returning luminary. The smooth surface of the waters was suddenly roused into action, and, with our yards "braced up," we were again driving through the breaking billows with an adverse wind, instead of some vagrant breeze which we had looked for to waft us on our course, or, perchance, some sweeping selvage of the "trade" itself, to carry us at once within the region of its inspiriting influence. But it was not to last. A growing gloom was now spreading itself around us, save only where, at intervals, the solar rays pierced through the chasms of the congressing clouds. There was a wayward spirit in the breeze, and mournful murmurs filled the empty pauses of its fitful gusts. High above the nebulous canopy, where, still in patches, the blue vault appeared, light fleecy vapors, hurrying to the westward, denoted the influence of a counter current in conflict with that which was languishing below. The sails collapsed and swelled alternately, flapping the masts; and, checking the progress they essayed to give, the vessel rode uneasy from their inflection. In the mean time the sea, reflecting the complexion of the gloom above, had changed its hue from a pure translucent blue to a greenish murky cast. Its crested and graceful undulations had also broken into a cross, unequal action, as if in the throes of hopeless impotency. The fretful action of the sails had trembled into silence, and with quivering wrinkles hung heavily from the yards; while the brief, half-whispered remarks among the crew, who stood gazing around, imparted a livelier sense of the silence they disturbed. Discursive glances alone bespoke the workings of busy speculation, and all motion seemed confined to our heads and eyes; now turning one way, now another; now upward with a roving range, now downward with something of the languor of disappointed inquiry, scanning the shadowy surface of the dim, dark waters. It was a solemn scene, and yet how beautiful! beautiful, and, it might be, fearful; but matured experience, predicting the issue, allayed apprehension, while meditation absorbed the mind of every one upon the deck. Above, below, around the circling expanse, all seemed spell-bound in a breathless pause. All was dark and murky, except to the eastward, where a long streak of the blue ether still appeared beneath a rugged arch, formed by the straggling edges of the wide-spreading vapors which had so suddenly conspired to shroud the face of heaven from our view. But the central point of the gloomy mass, which had appeared settling immediately above our heads, had imperceptibly moved more to the westward, and now hung lower, with a bulging curve toward the waters, as if sustaining some ponderous weight, or, replete with the material of storm, was about to burst its bounds and scatter desolation around it. |