ers, when persecuted, must have clung closely to any sacred relic. One of the nicest points of casuistry is to settle the measure of credence due to a tradition; the boundary lines of fact and fable are distinguished with difficulty. There may be in Rome some relics which have been handled by apostles, but a reasonable man will soon decide how the small certainty of detecting any of these should be entirely set aside, if such a number of falsehoods meet him at every spot. Relics, by retaining devotion upon themselves, withdraw it from God and truth, and by prompting an observance which the senses can discharge, such as a pilgrimage, or a bending of the knees, they fail to strengthen principles of constant conduct. Yet if every overgrown, nonsensical, and perverted fable were to be traced far back to a few simple elements, to institutions designed in earliest times by affectionate hearts as tributes of a commemorative love for the Saviour and his truth, we should find something upon which we might dwell with sincere delight. A valuable lesson is taught us in these perversities, by cautioning us to guard against the multiplication of symbols and of forms, which tend by force of their own attractive, and in some cases by force of their repulsive power, to outgrow and supersede the truths they were intended to aid.

Yet there are some scenes in the ancient capital and mistress of the world, which may truly be associated with the Apostles and martyrs of our faith. History, tradition, and local evidence of different kinds attest them. Stones, and caverns, and the green soil have recorded and transmitted the story of human faith, which has made them forever sacred.

With strong grounds of probability from fact, and from well attested tradition, there is still pointed out at Rome the prison in which St. Paul was confined, previous to his martyrdom. We know, from his own epistles, that he was a prisoner at Rome, expecting his death. On the southern slope of the Capitoline Hill, beneath a church, called S. Pietro in Carcere, are two dungeons called the Mamertine prisons. They lie one immediately above the other. The upper one was constructed by Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome, about six and a half centuries before our era. Servius Tullius added the lower one, for the punishment of the worst criminals, and from him it was called the Tullianum. They are both about thirty feet by twenty, and about fourteen feet high. The Emperor Augustus repaired them about twenty-two years before the birth of Christ.

They were the only public prisons in Rome, and many state offenders and conspirators, vanquished enemies and foreign criminals were confined there. Here Jugurtha starved, Sejanus was slain by order of Tiberius, Perseus king of Macedonia was imprisoned, and likewise Jonas son of Simon, the chief of the Jews, by order of Titus. The accomplices of Catiline were confined here before being put to death on the Roman forum.

Pious fraud has busied itself with this locality, and by a most absurd fabrication, repeated in solemn tones by a monk, who exhibits the prison, excites a smile from those, who, with only the probable tradition connected with the spot, would have been deeply impressed. A fountain of clear water gushes from a spring in the lower prison, and is said to have sprung up miraculously, that Paul while confined here might baptize his gaolers and forty-seven fellow prisoners, who all subsequently died as martyrs. As if here was not marvel enough, there is likewise shown upon the surface of the solid stone wall, by the side of the steps which connect the dungeons, the deeply marked profile of a human countenance, the nose, chin, and other features being perfectly delineated. The monks say, that as the gaoler was leading the Apostle to the lower prison, the latter uttered a sentiment which provoked the keeper to strike him upon the head against the wall, and thus left an ineffaceable mark of the countenance of Paul. The cavity is protected by bars of iron, lest devout worshippers should kiss away the impression. As might be supposed, the shrine is much reverenced. In a small chapel behind the church, and immediately over the entrance to the dungeons, are inscriptions recording the miraculous history of the spot, and never can a stranger enter that chapel without observing many individuals adoring and praying, in apparently an absorbed devotion.

Such are the sights and tales which meet us as we enter that prison, and revolve in our minds the strong reasons of probability for a part of the history which is attached to it. It may have been from that damp and gloomy cell that Paul wrote to Timothy his last message of affectionate counsel. The city, which had attractions for all others, had none for him. One friend he had found there who had "oft refreshed him, and was not ashamed of his chain," and he implores a blessing upon the house of Onesiphorus. One simple sentence of his own simple language tells how even partial converts had received the lessons

which he taught in his public trial; "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge." But in the midst of his loneliness and desertion, and out of his deep prison, he utters the calm and tranquil peace of his soul. It may have been there, that the following words of sublime and affecting power were penned. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my work, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness," &c.

66

The spot where the Apostle suffered martyrdom is likewise pointed out, and over it is erected a costly church, in which are standing miracles more ridiculous than credible. The locality may be correct, but the idle tales concerning the three fountains beneath the church are too absurd to be here repeated.

Next in the order of time, among the durable monuments of Christian interest in Rome, may be named the triumphal arch of sculptured Pentellic marble, erected by the Senate and People of Rome, in honor of Titus, after his return from the destruction of Jerusalem. It is a single arch, crossing the Sacred Way, and surmounted by an attic. Originally, both fronts were adorned with four fluted columns of the composite architecture, which have now disappeared. The frieze represents the triumphal procession of the conqueror with a river god, supposed to figure the Jordan. In the centre of the internal roof, an eagle is bearing Titus to heaven, in attestation of his apotheosis. Upon one side, within the edifice, the sculpture represents the conqueror as seated in a car drawn by four horses, crowned with laurel by Victory, and guided by the genius of Rome. On the other side, the sacred vessels of the Jewish temple, the seven-branched golden candlestick, the tables of the law and of the show bread, the jubilee trumpets, and the vessel for incense, are cut deep in the marble, from the original spoils of the plundered sanctuary. No possible doubt can attach to their originality or their fidelity. The arch and its ornaments were all completed within less than twenty years after the destruction of the temple. An unbroken line of authors have referred to this melancholy token of the desolation of the proudest and most sacred shrine which the earth has ever beheld. There have been thousands of Jews in Rome ever since the destruction of their city, as there are still, and the proud arch

crosses a principal thoroughfare of travel, but no Jew ever passes beneath it. They profess to believe that instantaneous death would be visited upon any one of them, who should come so near to the monument of their country's desolation and disgrace.

How solemnly down the stream of long ages does that pile of stone, raised by human pride, and decorated with the spoils of a haughty but majestic faith, how solemnly does it confirm the prediction, that, in the fulness of time, a Gentile race should overthrow the ceremonial code of ancient worship, to prepare the way for a simple faith, which addressed and convinced the heart. Even the teeth of time seem to respect the venerable relic; that ages yet in the far distant future may confirm from it the lessons of the dim past.

Josephus says the veil and the tables of the law were placed in Cæsar's palace, and the other treasures in the Temple of Peace, which was built for their reception, and the ruins of which are close at hand. When that splendid edifice was burned, the treasures were saved. The golden fillet is said to have been seen in the days of Hadrian. When Genseric sacked Rome, he took some of the treasures to Africa. Belisarius again seized them from him, and used them for his triumphal entry into Constantinople, and after all, Justinian presented them to different Christian churches in Jerusalem. History thus follows them back to their own home, and there they are lost.

Rome, too, is the scene of many Christian martyrdoms. The blood of true and faithful converts has stained its soil. The Christian never can forget that amid the proud monuments and temples of that ancient capital, the first confessors of the faith wandered as strangers, despised and persecuted. The most gigantic structure ever erected, and still remaining in the city, is the amphitheatre, or colosseum. Its stupendous walls, in part removed when the Roman barons of the middle ages used the edifice as a quarry, from which to construct their palaces, are now protected from ruin, because the arena is consecrated to the memory of the sainted martyrs who perished there, mingling their dying prayers with the howl of infuriated beasts. That enormous structure, conceived in dire cruelty, was completed in the year 80, of our era. One hundred thousand spectators could at the same time behold its fearful spectacles, and it was dedicated to its purpose by shows that con

tinued one hundred days, and witnessed the agonies of four thousand beasts and human beings. Among the victims of that dread arena were the iron-nerved gladiators, nurtured in the wild mountains, and reared from infancy with strength of limb and ferocity of heart, to grapple in a death struggle with each other, or with wild beasts from the hot deserts of Africa. These were willing victims. Slaves and conquered foes, and the hated followers of the new sect, were forced upon those sands, to give forth their life-blood in agony.

It is at midnight, by the light of the moon, and the glare of torches, that the awful impression of that cruel relic comes full upon the soul. No single moon can light up the whole of that vast pile. A part of it must always be night, in a shadow as dark as its own fearful history. The lesser ruins around it, are a fit introduction to its imposing terror. There night is always thoughtful, darkness is solemnizing, and the stupendous relic of nearly eighteen centuries produces on the mind an impression never to be effaced. There is the place, and then is the time, of all others, to form one living idea of what is meant by the progress of Humanity towards truth and virtue, under the guidance of Christian principles. That ruined amphitheatre is the giant skeleton, the monumental centre, of all that remains of heathen Rome, its ambition and its triumphs, its cruelty and its religion. It is a desolation and a wreck. The thin mantle of beauty with which hoary antiquity and decay have invested it, cannot veil its terrific and brutal purpose. The great ruling passion of the human heart in old times expressed itself on that spot. It was blood; the sight of bitter agony endured with a proud heart, the view of a composed countenance, and of a hard-nerved fortitude, while racking pains were exhausting the lifeblood. The death-shriek of the gladiator, the agonized prayer of a tortured Christian, the deafening roar of the thousand tormentors, who heard them all, with a smile, there was the past, -a distant, but not forgotten past. Ask now the ruling passion and energy of the present day; put innocence for blood, and good for evil, and the interval between, will show what is meant by the progress of Humanity. The traits of character which then stood first, now stand last. Then the earth rang with one mad and universal cry of blood; now the cry is for the soul of man, his whole soul, and the souls of all men. is from the dying prayer, the well tried faith of Christians, who stained that arena with their blood, that the change is to be

It