separated, and resolved to remain with her to the last extremity. A large force had surrounded the building, and few of the unfortunate christians escaped being taken. All were hurried to the city, and thrown into various places of confinement. Marcus and Constantia, with a few others, were consigned to the same apartment.

"Alas," said she to him in a low voice, "I shall be the cause, perhaps, of thy death!"

"I will willingly die with thee," was the reply.

As the morning arose, clear and beautiful, many a prayer might have been heard ascending from the prisons of the christian captives, and many a thanksgiving, too, for being counted worthy to suffer for Christ. In the streets of Rome, many might be seen, as the day advanced, hurrying to the place where, it was understood, a number of Christians were to be examined.

Trajan, though he certainly did encourage accusations and scenes of this kind, yet could not always prevent them, if he had been so disposed. He was probably sometimes obliged to yield to the feelings of a persecuting Pagan priesthood, of a superstitious populace, and, not seldom, of a cruel and avaricious magistracy. He, too, may not have been without some regard for those modes of worship with which his earliest ideas of religion were associated, and which were distinguished for their antiquity, and for the number of those who professed them.

Marcus and Constantia were both brought, with others, before the tribunal where the Prefect of the city sat in judgment. Her youth and beauty attracted the attention of all, and excited the commiseration of not a few. It is to her that our attention, too, must be chiefly directed.

"Maiden, thou art accused of having been in an unlawful assembly, and of being an atheist, and despiser of the gods of Rome and of the empire. What dost thou say, art thou a christian? Think ere thou dost answer."

"I must confess the truth,--I am a christian."

"Thou art young to die. Think yet again. 'Tis but a word or two. Curse thy Christ, whose name has brought thee into these dangers, and live."

"He encountered many dangers for me. He is my Lord, I cannot curse him."

"Nay, nay, be not so perverse. Acknow

ledge the emperor as thy Lord, and all may yet be well, and we will not remember that thou hast declared thyself a christian."

"I do acknowledge him as my lawful sovereign and lord, yet not so as to deny my Lord Christ."

"Has thou no father nor mother, whose gray hairs thou art in danger of bringing in sorrow to the grave? Hast thou no friend whose heart will be filled with anguish at thine untimely death? See, there is the image of the emperor, or, if thou likest it any better, the altar of Apollo. 'Tis but to burn a little incense to either, and thou art saved. We are merciful to thee, and thou wilt thus shew thy regard to the laws, and thy respect for the gods of Rome."

"I love mine aged father and mother, but Christ and truth more than ought besides. I cannot offer incense or do sacrifice; I worship the unseen God alone."

"Wilt thou, then, give thyself to death,to be torn limb from limb, it may be, by wild beasts? Think ere thou doest this. Abjure thy faith,-say thou art not a christian, and go in peace."

"Let me rather die a thousand deaths, than forsake Him who shrank not back from death for me."

"Then perish in thine obstinacy, and as a sacrifice to the gods whose anger thou dost so brave. And thou," addressing Marcus, "art thou, too, a christian ?"

He was about to answer in the affirmative, fully resolved to perish with Constantia, when she quickly exclaimed, "Marcus, thou knowest that in thine heart, thou art not a christian; couldst thou truly die for Christ he would accept thee. Thou shalt not die for my sake."

"Art thou a christian ?" was again asked. Half wild with conflicting emotions, he answered, "I am not."

"Then thou art free, let him be released. Depart to thine own abode, and beware how thou art found again in a christian assembly. We are merciful."

In a few moments more, Constantia was borne away from his sight to the prison designated for her reception.

Marcus felt, as he had never felt before, the worth and nobleness of that christian maiden, the truth, the constancy, and the love, now lost to him for ever.

At a late hour of the night, the old soldier who guarded the door of the apartment where Constantia was lifting up her heart in prayer and praise to God, was

accosted by a young man who, placing a heavy purse of gold in his hand, entreated admission for a few moments. The man hesitated. "But a few moments, my friend, no harm shall come to thee. She dies to-morrow; she is my betrothed. Thou mayest witness our interview if thou wilt." His haggard countenance and imploring expression completely subdued the soldier.

May I go down to the realms of Pluto this night, ere I deny thee this, poor young man. Go in, but tarry not long, it will endanger me."

The interview, I will not describe. The last words of Constantia were, "Farewell, Marcus. Thine I would have been. I am now the bride of Christ. I go to a glorious and blessed world. If I may think of thee there, it shall be to pray that thou mayest enter the kingdom of our Christ. This precious roll, I give to thee. Thou wilt keep it for my sake, and read it sometimes, when I am gone."

In that mighty amphitheatre, whose ruins still astonish every beholder; and whose mouldering walls have beheld so many bloody scenes; where Ignatius, of Antioch, about this same time, was, by the command of Trajan himself, exposed to wild beasts, and where so many had sealed their testimony for Christ with their blood, were assembled tens of thousands of all classes of Pagan Rome. The patrician and plebeian, the rich and the poor, females as well as men, the aged as well as the young, had gathered together, to witness the bloody sports of the arena, and the death of several of the "atheists," the "godless," the followers of Christ, alike indifferent to the sufferings which their fellow-creatures were doomed to undergo. In the centre of the immense building was the "arena," the scene of many a dreadful combat. It was strewn with the finest sand, and separated by the strongest barriers from the spectators, in order to prevent any accident from taking place in connection with the exhibition of ferocious beasts. Around it were the dens of wild animals ravenous with hunger, and awaiting, in eager expectation, their miserable victims. As the sanguinary spectacles proceed, we behold led out in the middle of this accursed enclosure, a young and beautiful maiden. Her dark hair falls loosely upon her robe of white. Her face is pale, but her lofty brow, and firm countenance, tell of the high resolve, and the noble daring to die for truth, for Christ, for God. Left alone, she kneels and lifts her

eyes to heaven, and breathes forth a prayer to the Lord of Hosts, and to the Crucified One of Calvary. The mighty multitude is hushed. Even there, thoughts of pity were found. So young, so beautiful, so infatuated, was the silent thought of all. A door is opened-a monstrous lion rushes forth with a terrific roar, and bounds towards his victim. He gathers himself for the fatal spring. A thousand eyes are turned from the sight, when suddenly he raises himself upon his feet, walks slowly up to the almost unconscious girl, then crouches at her side, and reposes his huge head against her form. The shouts of fifty thousand people rend the air and almost shake those massive walls. "Let her be saved, take her away." The beast rose from his position and glared with fiery eyes upon the multitude, and when the keepers drew near in order to remove him and his human companion, a deep growl warned them that he could not be approached with safety. The mystery of all this is easily explained. He had found an old friend. Two years before, when sick and hurt, Constantia, for her own gratification and amusement, had visited him daily, by the permission of a near relative, whose official position gave him the control of a certain portion of the animals kept for the sports of the amphitheatre. She had fed him for a long time with her own hand, and a sort of attachment had grown up between them. The recollection of it had almost passed away, till called to herself by the shouts of the spectators, and the proximity of the noble brute.

"O Christ, I thank thee, thou art mighty to save," were the first words that burst from her lips. Rising, she led the creature to his cage, and, giving him some food which was handed to her, retired.

Nearly twenty years after this event, and some seventy miles from the "eternal city," in a neat and well furnished dwelling, a youth stood gazing at a beautiful painting of a female in a white robe, kneeling, and a lion crouching at her side. "Marcus," exclaimed he to another young man near him, "this is the painting, of which thou hast so often told me, of thy mother, when condemned to suffer at Rome."

"My father had it done," returned the other, "in commemoration of an event which was the most trying and painful of his whole life. And I may say it to thee, Decius, he soon after became a christian himself."

THE POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AS AN ORGANIZATION.

BY ELIHU BURRITT.

How feeble and ephemeral are all the benevolent associations of the present day, contrasted with the organization of the christian church! Human power and wisdom could not produce a system which could compare with this institution for the Human perfection of social mechanism.

nature itself, with its heart-ties, consanguinities, and home and household affini. ties, has not done it, and cannot do it. Contrast the family circle, or any circle of human society, great or small, or any association however powerful in its organization, with the church, and it will seem like the circle which the falling pebble sets in motion across the quiet pool, compared with the unchanging and everlasting harmonies of nature. The family-first and oldest of human societies, the kernel whence they germinate-is subject to mortality, and to the transitions and vicissitudes of individual life. The little community grouped around one parent-centre, and cemented by the closest relationships of nature, and by its liveliest affections and sympathies, is no sooner formed than it begins to dissolve, to widen out into the sea of common life, like the circle-ripple caused by a pebble's fall, and to merge with the indiscriminate generations of mankind. Even in the first years of its consanguinity and communion, the family circle is not a permanent society. While yet in the dew of youth, son after son, daughter after daughter, bids adieu to the parental roof, and in another region of the country, or, perhaps, of the globe, becomes the parent of another family; which, in turn, widens into the world in like manner. It is a rare felicity in the experience of a family circle, when all its members, even to the second generation, are able to meet, once a year, at five consecutive anniversaries. Its social mechanism, however perfect and harmonious it may appear at first, is a transient arrangement; a school-master, it should be, and was designed to be, to prepare us for larger communions in this world, and unchanging and everlasting communions in the world to come. Compare this with the social Come economy of the christian church. away to this quiet, rural village, and enter its gray-walled and ivy-netted sanctuary, which has braved the storms, the cold and heat of centuries. The music of its Sab

bath bells, with silvery cadence, invited to its courts the unmemorialized generations, the fragments of families, that slumber in their last sleep beneath and around it. Look at the congregation here assembled. As it was in the beginning, and is now, it ever shall be, in the first attributes of its life and fellowship. Here is a family circle whose Parent-Centre never changes; whose consanguinity never attenuates with time. Relatively, it is an immortal and immutable community. Its age, and summer manhood, and womanhood, and childhood never change. One hundred years ago they were the same as to day. Now as then, and then as now, you see, what others saw, persons in the evening, at the noon, and in the fresh morning of life, and in all its intervening hours. Thus it will be to the end of time. Then look at another phase and fact of its social economy. It is the Sabbath day; this is not an anniversary meeting of the members of a society, drawn together by the forced attraction of an unusual circumstance. It is the weekly reunion of this great family circle. If we may so say, one day in seven they spend here in committee of the whole, on their duty and relations to God and man. All, from the youngest to the oldest, take part in this momentous consideration.

Such is the social organization of an individual christian church. For permanence and capacity of united sympathy and effort, it has no parallel in any human association. Then contemplate the fact, that in almost every village and parish in Christendom there is such a church; that one day in seven, hundreds of thousands of these unchanging and everlasting communions, on both sides of the Atlantic, assemble in their houses of worship and fellowship, and professedly consecrate these Sabbath hours to the contemplation of what they owe to God, and what they owe to man. How feeble and transient are all the benevolent associations of the age, compared with this divine and mighty institution! What are their Liliputian activities compared with its immeasurable capacity! Let the church array the force of its omnipotent organization against war, slavery, intemperance, and oppression but for a year, and it would drive those capital evils from the world! Let it meet, on a dozen extra Sabbaths consecrated to humanity, and concentrate its power upon these gigantic sins, and the earth's suffering and depressed

millions would rise up and call it blessed, in their jubilee and joy! And would it be inconsistent with its godlike mission to bring its irresistible organization to a work like this?

REMEMBERING THE DEAD.

Who would forget the loved and lost, the "dear departed gone before ?" What sincere mourner would be willing to blot from the memory all traces of the dear one, and by this means lighten the burthen of grief? Oh, none! We would rather cherish the dear remembrance. We consider it a sweet, though sad consolation, to remember, and often muse upon, the loved form now hidden from the sight; the speaking eye that death has veiled; the sound of that voice, the music of whose tones yet lingers upon our heart-strings, though for ever silent to our ears. We may again mingle with the world; we may find things to please, and friends to love; but the inmost recesses of our hearts enshrine the images of our departed ones. We often think of what they did and said, and perhaps shape our plans with reference to what we conceive would have been their opinion and advice. If they were among those on earth whose walk was holy, who shed around the light of a christian life, then the remembrance of them will frequently prove a restraint upon us, preserving us from forbidden paths, and they thus become, indeed, ministering spirits.

The thoughts of the dear ones who have died in the Lord, will make the idea of death less painful. It seems to narrow the broad river, to think that those who have been so intimately connected with us have passed its bounds. When surrounded with cares, and filled with trouble, we think of the moment when they put off this mortal robe, and we long with them to soar unfettered to those holy realms. When faint and weary with the burthen of life, when struggling with sin, and oppressed with

doubts and fears, we recall to mind that they "once wrestled hard as we do now," we witnessed their combats, but we viewed their victory, their triumphant faith at the last, and we look forward to similar conquest, through the help of our redeeming Lord.

But there are those who remember the dead with feelings that cannot thus benefit them. They brood with anguish and inconsolable sorrow upon the deep loss that they have sustained. They forget, in the depth of their affliction, that the living yet have a claim upon them; they are dead to every thing save their own sharp griefs, and make their hearts but the tomb of departed hopes and joys.

It is not wise, it is not right, thus to do; but who can conceive the desolate heart, with all its blighted hopes and crushed affections, that life has any charms or further claims upon them? Philosophy cannot avail; reason will not exert its accustomed sway; there is naught on earth can yield one ray of comfort. But there is a balm in Gilead, there is a sweet consolation in the promises of God to the afflicted. If the stricken one can but turn the eye of faith to its loving, though chastening Parent, a holy submission will fill the soul. The withered flower will send forth sweeter fragrance than ere the dew of love, though coming amidst darkness, rested upon it.

Our heavenly Father removes our friends that our thoughts may be diverted from earth; and this object would be defeated if the affliction exerted but a momentary influence upon us, and the memory of it passed quickly away.

Oh, if we have been called to lay those we love beneath the sod, let us not hinder our thoughts from wandering often to their lonely graves; let us cherish them in our memory, their gentle words and kindly sympathy, but let us fulfil the duties yet allotted to us, and bow humbly beneath the chastening stroke.

and proceeds to specify various characters frequently found in communities of professing christians, whose coldness of manner, or warmth of temper, or backwardness in aiding the progress of Divine truth, presents a hindrance to many who would otherwise be found abiding within the gates of Zion.

By way of answer to Mr. Smith's enquiry, and likewise to shew how naturally ready we are to judge of the goodness or otherwise of the tree by the quality of the fruit which it yields, permit me to give a brief delineation of the workings of my own mind. I once was among the number of them that were entering in. The following facts will make this plain:

From early childhood I have been religiously reared. By which you will be pleased to understand, that I was taught to refrain from telling lies and swearing, to "neither work nor play" during the Sabbath, to repress anger, and to say my prayers every night before getting into bed. Up to about the age of fourteen, I kept the faith, believing sincerely, as taught, that I should not go to the "bad place," as a reward for my so doing. However, the time came for me to "put away childish things."

I was induced, when about fourteen, to meet, along with a number of boys about my own age, in a class in the Sunday-school connected with the place of worship which the family regularly attended. I went early and always, soon caught the eye of the superintendent, and was removed into a selected class of youths meeting in a separate room, under the inspection of a man of piety, zeal, and talent. Here I formed friendships, became the associate of many of the teachers, and the intimate companion of others-a genial atmosphere this for the development of the christian life. Attending regularly, I joined in the school exercises; sang in the singing, was attentive in the prayers, and yielded all my faculties for understanding into the disposal of the worthy man who as teacher presided over our class. Time changed our little band from youths to young men, and in several of them a change more important still was said to have taken place, to wit, a "change of heart." Five or six of them joined the church within a few months' time. The question frequently arose, "who is to be the next?" About this time I became introduced to a new friend, an individual of strong feeling, clear, quick, and acute discernment, possessing a high standard of morals, and most fervent piety. We had many long

and serious conversations about things "pertaining to salvation." He often melted me into tears whilst insisting that all men were doomed to everlasting misery unless renewed by Divine grace. He produced on my mind a condition of real heartfelt regret that such was the case, encouraged me affectionately to accept the escape offered by the gospel, and caused me frequently to feel desirous of being a partaker of like precious faith with himself. He applied to me for permission to hand in my name to the church as a candidate for admission. I hesitated, fearing that my feelings were only natural emotion common to humanity. I did not positively refuse, but desired a short period in order to give the matter due consideration. Judge, then, was I not among them who were entering in?

At this critical juncture of affairs-critical to me-one of the senior teachers in the school, one in whom I reposed much confidence, was brought under what is termed discipline for a flagrant deflection from moral rectitude. Another, holding a high place in the esteem of his fellow-teachers, was discovered embezzling his employer's property. And a third was suspended for a period, for dishonourable conduct, certainly inconsistent with the christian profession. The effect of these cases, occurring as they did within a very short period, was to induce increased hesitancy on my part. I looked most narrowly into the private life and ways of all the professors of christianity over whom I had any opportunity of extending my observations. I analyzed the character of the minister, the deacons, the most approved of the members, and of all, in short, with whom I came into contact. Here I found a man not always truthful; here one acting confessedly from motives of worldly policy, whilst at the same time he prayed constantly, and in public, to be, "while in the world, not of the world;" here a hot-tempered, hasty, impulsive man, who seldom had a civil reply even for his near friends. Ere long after this time, the church became divided in its opinion about a trivial matter. Much bitterness of feeling was shewn on both sides. The matter came to an issue at one of the meetings, at which each party flatly contradicted what the other advanced, the end being a separation of the two halves, each feeling rancorously towards the other. Of course "there is always a calm after a storm." So it was here. The remaining body held a series of devotional meetings, expressive of their