His mind was agonized at the thoughts of her position: silently, to himself, he says This pale and false Vopiscus Hath from great Probus wrung his easy mandate; Obey not this fell edict." * * Much art and great argument were privately used to produce her recantation; to which she calmly answers "Who disown their Lord On earth, will He disown in heaven!" Sent to the arena; the torture and execution of the prisoners proceed, according to the order of their arraignment. The populace become enraged, and loudly demand the blood of the apostate priestess; while the præfect, in his palace, digests a plan to surely save her life. The high-priest of Apollo, her father, in his robes of office and with his official attendants, must boldly enter the arena, and offer pardon, in the name of his god, to any one who utters the cabalistic word signifying "I RECANT;" must hastily apply to each in person; at Margarita, one instructed must imitate her voice; instantly the priest is to throw the mantle of the god upon her; and the attendants, by force, to carry her to the palace of Olybius, where, instead of her execution, her marriage with Olybius is to take place. The procession of priests (of whom none but her father, and her sister in disguise as a proxy for the act of recantation, knew the secret) are urged instantly to action: "For, says Olybius, "my very soul is famished in every moment of delay!" The procession moves in all pomp and splendour, with a view to produce an alterative effect on the mind of the maddened populace. Its approach to the arena is proclaimed by a sentinel there; on hearing which, Margarita falls at the feet of the headsman, and successfully implores instant death, that her father may be spared the misery of witnessing it. She breathes a prayer in forgiveness of Olybius, and receives the stroke of death as the procession enters. The father rages, demands torture to make the Christians say how they enthralled her: a Christian teacher explains, as with "a still, small voice;" the priests of Apollo listen! Rage and excitement had reached the utmost bound. There was a pause, as the recess between two raging storms. The stillness reached even the palace, and reason did feel as if "There was darkness over all the land. Olybius, then :- Or murmur, from yon countless multitudes; Even thus, along his vast domains of silence, Speak only with fixed look and voiceless motion. 'Tis misery! Speak; Olybius orders; speak to me, Nor let mine own voice, like an evil omen, Load this hot air unanswered." A messenger announces the death of Margarita; Olybius rushes to kill him; but, recovering self-command— * * * shine and burn into the very entrails! Supremacy!! the great prerogative Of being blasted by superior misery!" A second messenger announces that "The enchantress Margarita, by her death, With clamour and with song. All Antioch crowds We are favoured only with the song of the slaves, who, upon that holiday, intermingled in the throng about the palace of Olybius, to which the body of Margarita has been borne; by which we may perceive how Christianity has elevated them above thoughts of their condition: SONG OF THE SLAVES. Sing to the Lord! Oh, let us shout his praise! Midst clouds of golden light, a pathway clear, Earth's tumults wild and pagan darkness drear, it Sing to the Lord! No more shall frantic Sibyl's yell, No, not Isis, nor yet Apollo's throne, Him of the Cross of Calvary :-His groan Sing to the Lord! The Temple's veil is rent! From this cold world shall, soaring, fly to heaven, On the head of Death! a promise given Sing to the Lord! Lo! while God's rebels rave, Vengeance and love at once bestowed on man. Hath won the world,-for Heaven and Thee, O God! It is one of the providences of Jehovah, that the very wretched forget their wrath, and the broken in spirit their violence. And may be well for those who examine moral conduct by the evidences of the providences of God, to notice how wrath conduces to wretchedness, and violence to a breaking down of the spirit. Olybius was by no means prepared to adopt the humiliating doctrines of the new faith; but he perceived it to be well adapted to the condition of those in the extremely low walks of life. By it the slave was taught to become "the freeman of the Lord," and the wretched, destitute, and miserable, to become "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." These doctrines, and the whole system, being founded upon the pillars of Humility, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were an arrangement to make the most humble as happy as the most exalted; as to happiness and hopes of heaven, it made all men equal; nor is it surprising that the low classes more readily become its converts. Olybius may have seen some beautiful features in this system; but his philosophy forbid his faith. He calmly decided that it was a superstition too low to combat-worthy only of contempt. But he perceived that the blood of a hundred made a thousand Chris tians, and was convinced the only remedy was to improve and elevate the mind,-to imbue it with deep religious feeling and principle, a reverence and veneration for the gods. He deeply felt the wound inflicted by the presence of Vopiscus, and would gladly have proved to the emperor that change of government, either as to ruler or its general system, could not affect the condition of this new doctrine. But he had no knowledge of the Christian's God, nor of his attributes as a distinct Being; and hence, although he may be regarded as a most deadly enemy, yet, since the providences of Jehovah, through the mild light of the gospel, begin to develop themselves to the human understanding, we may deem his report to the emperor, on the Christian superstition, to be ONE OF ITS MOST UNDYING PANEGYRICS; as an extract from which, we may well imagine, he wrote thus:— Olybius to the Emperor Probus. But, "Great reforms on moral subjects do not occur, except under the influence of religious principle. Political revolutions and changes of policy and administration do indeed occur from other causes, and secure the ends which are desired. on subjects pertaining to right and wrong; on those questions where the rights of an inferior and down-trodden class are concerned, we can look for little advance, except from the operation of religious principle. "Unless the inferior classes have power to assert their rights by arms, those rights will be conceded only by the operations of conscience and the principles of religion. There is no great wrong in any community which we can hope to rectify by new considerations of policy, or by a mere revolution. The relations of Christianity are not reached by political revolutions, or by changes of policy or administration. "Political revolutions occur in a higher region, and the condition of the Christian is no more affected by a mere change of government, than that of the vapours of a low, marshy vale is affected by the tempest and storm in the higher regions of the air. The storm sweeps along the Apennines, the lightnings play, and the thunders utter their voice, but the malaria of the Campagna is unaffected, and the pestilence breathes desolation there still. So it is with Christianity. Political revolutions occur in higher places, but the malaria of Christianity remains settled down on the low plains of life, and not even the surface of the pestilential vapour is agitated by all the storms and tempests of political changes; it remains the same deadly, pervading pestilence still. Under all the forms of despotism; in the government of aristocracy, or an oligarchy; under the administration of a pure democracy, or the forms of a republican government; and in all the changes from one to the other, Christianity remains still the same. Whether the prince is hurled from the throne, or rides into power on the tempest of revolution, the down-trodden Christian is the same still:—and it makes no difference to him whether the prince wears a crown, or appears in a plain, republican garb,-whether Cæsar is on the throne, or slain in the senate-house.' In these imputed sentiments of Olybius, the indications of the will of Jehovah, in establishing and protecting the institutions of Christianity, by his providences towards it, is vividly portrayed to the Christian eye. Jehovah would not suffer "the gates of hell to prevail against it." Of the very materials intended by its enemies for its destruction, he made them build its throne. The scene, by which we have introduced this imaginary report of Olybius to the emperor, has been merely to remove from the mind any bias tending to a partial conception of the indications of the will of God, as evinced by his providences therein described, that we may more readily discover the fact, that, instead of showing Christianity to be worthy only of contempt, Olybius did pronounce its eulogium. Change the words Christian and Christianity into slave and slavery; prince into master, and it then is what Mr. Barnes did say, and has said, (pages 25, 26, 27,) word for word, about the institution of slavery; and, as if desirous to portray the providences of God towards it down to the present time, continuously says. See pages 27 and 28 Slavery among the Romans remained substantially the same under the Tarquins, the consuls, and the Cæsars; when the tribunes gained the ascendency, and when the patricians crushed them to the earth. It lived in Europe when the northern hordes poured down on the Roman Empire; and when the caliphs set up the standard of Islam in the Peninsula. It lived in all the revolutions of the Middle Ages,-alike, when spiritual despotism swayed its sceptre over the nations, and when they began to emerge into freedom. In the British realms, it has lived in the time of the Stuarts, under the Protectorate, and for a long time under the administration of the house of Hanover. With some temporary |