*

by the ministers of Roman power; they have thrust themselves forward; they have gone up of their own accord to the tribunal and proclaimed their faith, and invited the death at which nature trembles and revolts. * Ye need not, ye ought not, impatiently seek for the rack and the cross. It is enough if, when sought and found, and arraigned, you be found faithful; if then you deny not nor renounce your Lord, but glory in your name, and with your dying breath shout it forth as that for which you gladly encounter torture and death. Go not forth, then, seeking the martyr's crown! Wait till you are called. God knoweth, and he alone, whom he would have to glorify him by that death which is so much more to be coveted than life."

The events which took place immediately after the meeting of the Christians, are recorded by Nichomachus, who was unable to find among the papers of his master, Piso, any account of them. Walking through the city soon after, saluted, on all sides, by language the most cruel and ferocious, he says:

"I paused among other curious and busy idlers, at the door of a smith's shop, which as I passed slowly by presented a striking view of a vast and almost boundless interior, blazing with innumerable fires, about which laborers half naked and seeming as if fire themselves, from the reflection from their steaming bodies of the red glare of the furnaces-stood in groups, some drawing forth the bars of heated metal and holding them, while others wielding their cyclopean hammers, made the anvils and the vast interior ring with the blows they gave. All around the outside of the shop, and in separate places within, stood the implements and machines of various kinds which were either made, or were in the process of being put together. Those whom I joined were just within the principal entrance, looking upon a fabric of iron, consisting of a complicated array of wheels and pulleys, to which the workmen were just in the act of adding the last pieces. The master of the place now approaching and standing with us, while he gave diverse orders to the men, I said to hm:

"What new device may this be? The times labor with new contrivances by which to assist the laborer in his art, and cause iron to do what the arm has been acccustomed to perform. But after observing this with care, I can make nothing of it.'

The master looked at me with a slighting expression of countenance, as much as to say, 'you are a wise one! You must just have emerged from the mountains of Helvetia, or the forests of the Danube.' But he did not content himself with looks.

"This, sir?' said he. This, if you would know it, is a rack - a common instrument of torture-used in all the prisons of the empire, the use of which is to extract truth from one who is unwilling to speak except compelled; or, sometimes when death is thought too slight a punishment, to give it an edge with, just as salt and pepper are thrown into a fresh wound. Some crimes, you must know, were too softly dealt with, were a sharp axe the only instrument employed. Cæsar! just bring some wires of a good thickness, and we will try this. Now shall you see precisely how it would fare with your own body, were you on this iron frame, and Varus standing where I am. There, the body you perceive is confined in this manner. You observe there can be no escape and no motion. Now at the word of the judge, this crank is turned. Do you see the effect upon the wire? Imagine it your body, and you will have a lively idea of the instrument. Then at another wink or word from Varus, these are turned, and you see that another part of the body, the legs, or arms, as it may be, are subjected to the same force as this wire, which as the fellow keeps turning, you see strains, and straightens, and strains, till-crack!- there! - that is what we call a rack. A most ingenious contrivance, and of great use. This is going up within the hour to the hall of the prefect.'

"It seems,' I remarked, 'well contrived indeed for its object. And what,' I asked, 'are these which stand here? Are they for the same or a similar purpose?'

"Yes-these, sir, are different, and yet the same. They are all for purposes of torture, but they vary infinitely in the ingenuity with which they severally inflict pain and death. That is esteemed in Rome the most perfect instrument which, while it inflicts the most exquisite torments, shall at the same time not assail that which is a vital part, but, you observe, prolong life to the utmost. Some of an old-fashioned structure, with a clumsy and bungling machinery - here are some sent to me as useless-long before the truth could be extracted, or much more pain inflicted than would accompany beheading, destroyed the life of the victim. Those which I build - and I build for the state - are not to be complained of in that way. Varus is curious enough, I can assure you, in such things. All these that you see here, of whatever form or make, are for him and the hall of justice.""

These instruments of torture were to force into subjection refractory dissenters from the religion of the gods of Rome. Nichomachus is suddenly interrupted by a rush and tumult in the street. A crowd 'heaving to and fro like the fiery mass of a

boiling crater,' are bearing Macer violently away, who, after eloquently addressing the multitude, is ultimately conveyed to the tribunal of Varus. A scene, second to none from the pen of our author, ensues, wherein Varus endeavors to seduce the Christian from his faith, through fear of the torture which awaits him. But, with an eloquence that reaches the sublime, Macer defends his religion, and remains firm. The rack is put in requisition:

"As Varus ended, at a sign and a word from him, what seemed the solid wall of the room in which we were, suddenly flew up upon its screaming pulleys, and revealed another apartment black as night, save here and there where a dull torch shed just light enough to show its great extent, and set in horrid array before us engines of every kind for tormenting criminals, each attended by its half-naked minister, ready at a moment's warning to bind the victim, and put in motion the infernal machinery. At this sight, a sudden faintness overspread my limbs, and I would willingly have rushed from the hall, but it was then made impossible.

"Unmoved and unresisting, his face neither pale nor his limbs trembling, did Macer surrender himself into the hands of those horrid ministers of a cruel and bloody superstition, who then hastily approached him, and seizing him, dragged him toward their worse than hell. Accomplished in their art, for every day is it put to use, Macer was in a moment thrown down and lashed to the iron bars; when each demon, having completed the preparation, stood leaning upon his wheel, for a last sign from the Prefect. It was instantly given, and while the breath even of every being in the vast hall was suspended, through an intense interest in the scene, the creaking of the engine, as it began to turn, sounded upon the brain like thunder. Not a groan nor a sigh was heard from the sufferer. The engine turned till it seemed as if any body or substance laid upon it must have been wrenched asunder. Then it stopped. And the minutes counted to me like hours or ages, ere the word was given, and the wheels unrestrained, flew back again to their places. Macer was then unbound. He at first lay where he was thrown upon the pavement. But his life was yet strong within his iron frame. He rose upon his feet, and was again led to the presence of his judges. His eye had lost nothing of its wild fire, nor his air any thing of its lofty independence."

We are compelled to refer the reader, for the exciting scenes which follow, to the volumes themselves. Suffice it to say, that another rack, of a different construction and greater power, with other new instruments of torture, are fruitless in shaking the firm purpose of the martyr. He is true to the faith that is in him, to the last moment of keenest agony. His body is given to the crowd, who thrust hooks into it, and drag it forth into the street. The mob repair to the martyr's house, which is razed to the ground, his sons murdered on the spot, and his wife and daughters dragged to the place of games, and thrown to 'blood-hounds fiercer than the fiercest beasts of the forest,' who leave of them nothing but a heap of mangled bones.

Following these scenes which are sketched with a powerful hand, and thrill through the heart of the reader like some of the more graphic pictures of Scott-is the hearing of Probus, in defence of his religion, in the banqueting hall of the imperial palace of Aurelian. The locale is drawn with the eye of a painter, and the defence is indeed a master-piece of eloquent argument and impassioned language. The whole, however, is quite too long to extract, nor can any portion of it be segregated, to advantage. Powerful as was this' defence of the faith,' and many as were the friendly hearers upon whom it fell, Aurelian, supreme and omnipotent, remains firmly rooted in his purposes of blood. Other edicts are issued, declaring the Christians enemies of the state and of the gods, and enjoining upon all good citizens to inform against them, that they may be carried before the Prefect. Their houses are every where assailed, and their bodies incarcerated in prisons, to be dragged before summary and barbarous judges. Among them is the Christian Probus, who, although condemned to be thrown to wild beasts, patiently bides his time, grieving only that he has not been better able to serve his heavenly Master. Am I,' says he, to the Princess Julia, who visits him in prison:

"Am I worthy? Have I wrought well my appointed task? Have I kept the faith? And is God my friend, and Jesus my Saviour? These are the thoughts that engross

VOL. XII.

21

and fill the mind. It is busy with the past-and with itself. It has no thoughts to spare upon suffering and death-it has no doubts or fears to remove concerning immortality. The future life, to me, stands out in the same certainty as the present. Death is but the moment which connects the two. You say well, that at such an hour as this, the mind can scarce possess itself in perfect peace. Yet is it agitated by nothing that resembles fear. It is the agitation that must necessarily have place in the mind of one to whom a great trust has been committed for a long series of years, at that moment when he comes to surrender it up to him from whom it was received. I have lived many years. Ten thousand opportunities of doing good to myself and others have been set before me. The world has been a wide field of action and labor, where I have been required to sow and till against the future harvest. Must I not experience solicitude about the acts and the thoughts of so long a career? I may often have erred; I must often have stood idly by the wayside; I must many times have been neglectful, and forgetful, and wilful; I must often have sinned; and it is not all the expected glory of another life, nor all the honor of dying in the cause of Christ, nor all the triumph of a martyr's fate, that can or ought to stifle and overlay such thoughts. Still I am happy. Happy, not because I am in my own view worthy or perfect, but because through Jesus Christ I am taught, in God, to see a Father. I know that in him I shall find both a just and a merciful judge; and in him who was tempted even as we are, who was of our nature and exposed to our trials, shall I find an advocate and intercessor such as the soul needs. So that, if anxious, as he who is human and fallible must ever be, I am nevertheless happy and contented. My voyage is ended; the ocean of life is passed; and I stand by the shore, with joyful expectations of the word that shall bid me land, and enter into the haven of my rest.'

"As Probus ended these words, a low and deep murmur, or distant rumbling, as of thunder, caught our ears, which, as we listened, suddenly increased to a terrific roar of lions, as it were directly under our feet. We instinctively sprang from where we sat, but were quieted at once by Probus :

"There is no danger,' said he;' they are not within our apartment, nor very near us. They are a company of Rome's executioners, kept in subterranean dungeons, and fed with prisoners whom her mercy consigns to them. Sounds more horrid yet have met my ears, and may yours. Yet I hope not.'

"But while he yet spoke, the distant shricks of those who were thrust toward the den, into which from a high ledge they were to be flung headlong, were borne to us, accompanied by the oaths and lashes of such as drove them, but were immediately drowned by the louder roaring of the imprisoned beasts, as they fell upon and fought for their prey. We sat mute, and trembling with horror, till those sounds at length ceased to reverberate through the aisles and arches of the building.

"O Rome! cried Probus, when they had died away, how art thou drunk with blood! Crazed by ambition, drunk with blood, drowned in sin, hardened as a millstone against all who come to thee for good, how shalt thou be redeemed? Where is the power to save thee?'

"It is in thee!' said Julia. 'It is thy blood, Probus, and that of these multitudes who suffer with thee, that shall have power to redeem Rome and the world.'"

Varus seeks him in his cell, and employs all his arts to win him from his destiny, But without avail. The day of his last trial arrives, and he is led to the vivaria for execution. This event is thus described by Piso:

"I had waited not long when, from beneath that extremity of the theatre where I was sitting, Probus was led forth and conducted to the centre of the arena, where was a short pillar to which it was customary to bind the sufferers. Probus, as he entered, seemed rather like one who came to witness what was there, than to be himself the victim, so free was his step, so erect his form. In his face there might indeed be seen an expression, that could only dwell on the countenance of one whose spirit was already gone beyond the earth, and holding converse with things unseen. There is always much of this in the serene, uplifted face of this remarkable man; but it was now there written in lines so bold and deep, that there could have been few in that vast assembly but must have been impressed by it, as never before by aught human. It must have been this, which brought so deep a silence upon that great multitude- not the mere fact that an individual was about to be torn by lions that is an almost daily pastime. For it was so, that when he first made his appearance, and as he moved toward the centre, turned and looked round upon the crowded seats rising to the heavens, the people neither moved nor spoke, but kept their eyes fastened upon him as by some spell which they could not break.'

"When he had reached the pillar, and he who had conducted him was about to bind him to it, it was plain, by what at that distance we could observe, that Probus was entreating him to desist and leave him at liberty; in which he at length succeeded, for that person returned, leaving him alone and unbound. O, sight of misery!-he who

for the humblest there present would have performed any office of love, by which the least good should redound to them, left alone and defenceless, they looking on and scarcely pitying his cruel fate! When now he had stood there not many minutes, one of the doors of the vivaria was suddenly thrown back, and bounding forth with a roar that seemed to shake the walls of the theatre, a lion of huge dimensions leaped upon the arena. Majesty and power were inscribed upon his lordly limbs; and as he stood there where he had first sprung, and looked round upon the multitude, how did his gentle eye and noble carriage, with which no one for a moment could associate meanness, or cruelty, or revenge, cast shame upon the human monsters assembled to behold a solitary, unarmed man, torn limb from limb! When he had in this way looked upon that cloud of faces, he then turned and moved round the arena, through its whole circumference, still looking upward upon those who filled the seats- - not till he had come again to the point from which he started, so much as noticing him who stood, his victim, in the midst. Then- -as if apparently for the first time becoming conscious of his presence- he caught the form of Probus; and moving slowly toward him, looked steadfastly upon him, receiving in return the settled gaze of the Christian. Standing there still awhile each looking upon the other - he then walked round him, then approached nearer, making suddenly, and for a moment, those motions which indicate the roused appetite; but, as it were in the spirit of self-rebuke, he immediately retreated a few paces and lay down in the sand, stretching out his head toward Probus, and closing his eyes as if for sleep.

"The people, who had watched in silence, and with the interest of those who wait for their entertainment, were both amazed and vexed, at what now appeared to be the dulness and stupidity of the beast. When however, he moved not from his place, but seemed as if he were indeed about to fall into a quiet sleep, those who occupied the lower seats began both to cry out to him, and shake at him their caps, and toss about their arms, in the hope to rouse him. But it was all in vain; and at the command of the Emperor, he was driven back to his den.

"Again a door of the vivaria was thrown open, and another of equal size, but of a more alert and rapid step, broke forth, and, as if delighted with his sudden liberty and the ample range, coursed round and round the arena, wholly regardless both of the people and of Probus, intent only, as it seemed, upon his own amusement. And when at length he discovered Probus standing in his place, it was but to bound toward him as in frolic, and then wheel away in pursuit of a pleasure he esteemed more highly than the satisfying of his hunger. At this, the people were not a little astonished, and many who were near me, hesitated not to say, 'that there might be some design of the gods in this.' Others said, plainly, but not with raised voices, 'An omen! an omen!' At the same time, Isaac turned and looked at me with an expression of countenance, which I could not interpret. Aurelian, meanwhile, exhibited many signs of impatience; and when it was evident the animal could not be wrought up, either by the cries of the people or of the keepers, to any act of violence, he too was taken away. But when a third had been let loose, and with no better effect, nay, with less-for he, when he had at length approached Probus, fawned upon him and laid himself at his feet - the people, superstitious as you know beyond any others, now cried out aloud, An omen! an omen!' and made the sign that Probus should be spared and removed. Aurelian himself seemed almost of the same mind, and I can hardly doubt would have ordered him to be released, but that Fronto at that moment approached him, and by a few of those words which, coming from him, are received by Aurelian as messages from Heaven, put within him a new and different mind; for rising quickly from his seat, he ordered the keeper of the vivaria to be brought before him. When he appeared below upon the sands, Aurelian cried out to him:

"Why, knave, dost thou weary out our patience thus- letting forth beasts already over-fed? Do thus again, and thou thyself shall be thrown to them. Art thou too a Christian?'

"Great Emperor,' replied the keeper, 'than those I have now let loose, there are not larger nor fiercer in the imperial dens, and since the sixth hour of yesterday they have tasted nor food nor drink. Why they have thus put off their nature, 't is hard to guess, unless the general cry be taken for the truth, that the gods have touched them.' "Aurelian was again seen to waver, when a voice from the benches cried out, "It is, O Emperor, but another Christian device! Forget not the voice from the temple! The Christians, who claim powers over demons, bidding then go and come at pleasure, may well be thought capable to change, by the magic imputed to them, the nature of a beast.'

"I doubt not,' said the Emperor, 'but it is so. Slave! throw up now the doors of all thy vaults, and let us see whether both lions and tigers be not too much for this new necromancy. If it be the gods who interpose, they can shut the mouths of thousands as of one.

"At those cruel words, the doors of the vivaria were at once flung open, and an hundred of their fierce tenants, maddened both by hunger and the goads that had been applied, rushed forth, and in the fury with which in a single mass they fell upon Probus then kneeling upon the sands-and burying him beneath them, no one could behold his

fate, nor when that dark troop separated, and ran howling about the arena in search of other victims, could the eye discover the least vestige of that holy man. I then fled from the theatre, as one who flies from that which is worse than death.'

For the stirring events which follow-the capture of Piso and Julia, the faithful services of Isaac the Jew, and the final restoration to liberty of the illustrious prisoners, upon the assumption of the throne by Tacitus - we must refer our readers to the work itself, which when they shall have eagerly devoured, they will thank the author most cordially, as do we, for the rich feast he has spread before them.

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. PRACTICAL RULES FOR THE PROMOTION OF DoMESTIC HAPPINESS: Containing Rules for the Married; Essay on the Relations of Masters and Mistresses, and Domestics; Rules for Moral Education, Essay on Fashions, etc. By M. CAREY, Author of the 'Olive Branch,' etc. In one volume. pp. 170. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. Hart.

Or the many useful books which that warm-hearted philanthropist, MATTHEW CAREY, has given to the public, we consider the one before us, on many accounts, the very best. Bringing to his task the proper spirit, with the aid of a long personal experience, the author has been peculiarly successful in transferring to his book the most important lessons of domestic life, in a style equally terse and simple. We must content ourselves, in the way of extracts, with a selection from our author's 'Practical Rules for the Promotion of Domestic Happiness,' beginning with those for husbands:

"I. Always regard your wife as your equal; treat her with kindness, respect, and attention; and never address her with the appearance of an air of authority, as if she were, as some misguided husbands appear to regard their wives, a mere housekeeper. "II. Never interfere in her domestic concerns, hiring servants, etc.

"III. Always keep her properly supplied with money for furnishing your table in a style proportioned to your means, and for the purchase of dress, and whatever other articles she may require, suitable to her station in life.

"IV. Cheerfully and promptly comply with all her reasonable requests.

"V. Never be so unjust as to lose your temper toward her, in consequence of indifferent cookery, or irregularity in the hours of meals, or any other mismanagement of her servants; knowing the difficulty of making many of them do their duty.

"VI. If she have prudence and good sense, consult her on all great operations, involving the risk of very serious injury, in case of failure. Many a man has been rescued from ruin by the wise counsels of his wife; and many a foolish husband has most seriously injured himself and family, by the rejection of the advice of his wife, stupidly fearing, if he followed it, he would be regarded as henpecked! A husband can never consult a counsellor more deeply interested in his welfare than his wife.

"VII. If distressed or embarrassed in your circumstances, communicate your situation to her with candour, that she may bear your difficulties in mind in her expenditures. Women sometimes, believing their husbands' circumstances better than they really are, disburse money which cannot be well afforded, and which, if they knew the real situation of their husbands' affairs, they would shrink from expending.

"VIII. Never on any account chide or rebuke your wife in company, should she make any mistake in history, geography, grammar, or indeed on any other subject. There are, I am persuaded, many wives of such keen feelings and high spirits, (and such wives deserve to be treated with the utmost delicacy,) that they would rather receive a severe and bitter scolding in private, than a rebuke in company, calculated to display ignorance or folly, or to impair them in their own opinion, or in that of others.

To sum up all you now have heard,
Young men and old, peruse the bard:
A female trusted to your care,

His rule is pithy, short and clear:
Be to her faults a little blind;

Be to her virtues very kind;

Let all her ways be unconfin'd,

And place your padlock on her mind.""