SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY.

ARGUMENT.

CHRESTOGITON, a Cyprian, who had rendered signa' service to his native island, and risen to the Archonship, is deposed by MELACOMas, a rival, and sent into banishment. Preferring death to exile, he returns to Cyprus; and, meeting with APPIANUS, a Roman, and his daughter, two Christians, who had fled from persecution at Antioch, he falls in love with the maid and embraces her religion. MELACOMAS, struck with the beauty of the young Roman, makes love to her, and being repulsed, dooms her and her father and CHRESTOGITON to death, by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. CHRESTOGITON preaches the Christian religion to the Cyprians, and slays the lion which is let into the arena. Triumph of the Christian faith.

BOWER OF PAPHOS.

Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word.

ACTS Ch. XI. v. 19.

Χειλεα δε δροσοεντα καί ἡ μελίφυρτος έκεινη
Ηθεος αρμονίη κεστος ἔφν Παφίης.

Τούτοίς πασιν εγω καταδαμναμαι ομμασι μούνοις
Θελγομαι οις ελπις μειλιχος ενδιαει.

P. SILENTIARIUS.

THE day-god, off Drepanum's height,
Still lingered o'er the happy isle ;
And Paphos' gilded domes grew bright
Beneath his last and loveliest smile:
Bright came the opalled sunbeams down
Upon each mountain's golden crown,
Tinting the foliage of the trees-

The purple billows of the ocean,

Swept by the pennons of the breeze,

Were curling with a gentle motion,

B

As if, in sunny smiles, their waves
Were welcoming to Tithonus' bed

Far down amid the coral caves-
The weary god; while round his head
The crimson curtains of the west
Were drawn, as down the watery steep,
His flashing car descended deep,

Amid the golden sands to rest.

How throbs the pulse of those who roam-
How glows the breast with rapture, burning
With thoughts of kindred and of home,
When to that sacred spot returning!

Although the exile's foot may tread
The flowery soil of fairest isles

That dimple ocean's cheek with smiles;
And stainless skies gleam o'er his head:
His native land-though icebergs frown
In one eternal winter, down

Upon its cold and barren shore,

Or though the red volcano's tide,
In waves of death, its plains sweep o'er,
Is fairer than all earth beside.

Once more on Cyprus' sunny strand
The exiled Chrestogiton stood,

And hailed his own, his happy land,—
The blooming Eden of the flood,
The fertile land of fruits and flowers
Where everlasting summer strayed,
Chasing the rosy-winged hours;

And 'mid her own sweet myrtle bowers,
Young Love, with flowing girdle, strayed.

The floodtide of a bosom, swelling
With Nature's tender sympathies,
Was gushing from their holy dwelling;
And all his soul was in his eyes,
As rose, on his enraptured view,
The azure summits of the hills,
With the bright wealth of pearly rills
Leaping from their elm-clouded side,
Like moonbeams, from Heaven's urn of blue,
Poured on the ocean's flashing tide.
The beauty of the palmy shore,

With pavement of the rosiest shell,