when "affliction and persecution" arose. At the same time, it is also plain that there were true sheep of the Great Shepherd, whom power and threats could not terrify, or punishment force to deny their calling.

"Others, when named by their accusers, said at first that they were Christians, and some often denied it; they had been (they said) but had ceased to be such; some three years, some more, some even twenty years ago. They all worshipped your statue and the images of the gods; they also reviled Christ. But they frequently declared, that [even when they were Christians,] this was the amount of their offence, or error: they were in the habit of assembling on a stated day,* before daylight; to sing among

There is an amusing exhibition of the determination, with which some men make every thing bend to one idea, in the fact, that this expression, "stated day," has been drawn into debate to prove that Christmas was celebrated by the early Christians. The remark of one of the early fathers, that "some over. curious persons were endeavoring to ascertain and establish the exact day of Christ's Nativity," would seem to show that no such custom prevailed generally in the earliest days of the Church. Moreover, the variance concerning the day to be celebrated between the Eastern and Western Churches, both scions of one stock, would indicate that it was not a primitive ordinance of the Church. If it had been, there would have been no dispute concerning the proper time to be celebrated. But this is not a question for us to debate. Our topic is, does "stated day" mean "Christmas"?

As there are 365 days in the year, the affirmative is involved in difficulty at the start. We cannot imagine why the "stated day" should be Christmas any more than Innocents' day. But is it not impossible that Christmas day should be alluded to? It appears from the context that the Christians (or those who claimed to be associated with them) had time, during Pliny's administration, to be “* in the habit of assembling on a "stated day" for religious worship; and to desist from this habit on the promulgation of an edict, which Pliny made in pursuance of a >> commission from Trajan. This administration lasted only two years. This let ter was, we judge from its position in the order of Pliny's correspondence, writ ten about the middle of the second year of his office. Before it was written, an extensive examination of a large number of Christians, consuming much time of course, had been going on. Before this investigation came on, the Christians (or some of them) had discontinued their assemblies-how long before we do not know. Nor do we know how long Pliny had been in Bithynia before he received orders from Trajan to prohibit popular assemblies. A fair conjecture would be, that it was during less than a year that those Christians had been in the habit of assembling, and had discontinued the practice. Christmas comes but once a year. Is it not highly improbable, then, that it was the habit of celebrating Christmas which was alluded to by the Christians at their examination before Pliny? Is it not almost certain, that some more frequent exercises of worship, which they met together to perform, were spoken of? Is it not pro bable that they had "stated" meetings more than once a year to sing praises to Christ and declare their vows of sanctity? And would they not, in their confession, have alluded to the last?

We have never doubted that the Sabbath was here alluded to. The exercises were properly those of the Sabbath; the singing, the mutual promise of holy living, the weekly communion service. The band met before day-light; for, as the Sabbath commemorated Jesus' resurrection, and as this event took place so early that his body could not be found by the holy women who visited his grave "while it was yet dark," they commenced to celebrate it before break of day. We do not object to the pious impulses of those who celebrate Christmas. The comprehensive Christianity of Paul is admirable, in our view. He says, "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike: let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."

themselves, by turns, to Christ as to a GOD; of binding themselves by solemn oath against all wickedness, not to commit thefts, rob. beries or adulteries, not to betray trusts, or, when called upon, to deny a deposit; of dispersing when these exercises are over, and of re-assembling to partake of food, harmless in its nature, and eaten in common; and even this they said they had abandoned after I issued an edict, according to your instructions, forbidding popular assemblies of any kind."

A more simple and beautiful picture of the manner of life among the early Christians has never been perused. They met to adore Christ as GOD, (mark this!) in sacred songs; to pledge each other to live so as not to dishonor their profession and to carry out in the minutest affairs of life, principles of strict integrity; then to dis perse, and, in the afternoon, re-assembled to eat "with gladness and singleness of heart," food, significant of a holy event and of their perfect union with each other. Pliny could not believe that these innocent exercises were all that distinguished Christians, and resolved to make farther investigations. He continues:

"On which account, I considered it the more necessary to put two maid-servants, called female ministers (Deaconesses) to the torture, and extort from them the real truth. But I discovered in them nothing but a depraved and impracticable superstition. Accordingly, I postponed the investigation and have hurried to you for advice."

Two maid-servants were officers in the early Christian Church! How humble must have been the spirit of that body! But the torture could not induce them to falsify their faith, and Pliny, puzzled beyond measure at what he considered at once innocent and stupendous folly, stops the investigation.

The affair seems to me worthy of consultation; especially on account of the number of those put in jeopardy by these prosecutions. For many, of every age, of every rank, of both sexes even, are summoned and will yet be summoned to trial. Nor has the contagion affected the cities only, but has penetrated into the villages and open country."

This was but about seventy-four years after the death of Christ and only about forty after the martyrdom of Paul! Even rank was reached by the sacred infection, and youth enrolled itself in the holy cause.

"Yet it seems to me possible to arrest and cure this evil. At all events, it is clear that the temples, which have been of late almost abandoned, are beginning to be frequented, that the ceremonies of religion, after a long intermission, have been resumed, and that there is a general demand for victims, of which purchasers have been of late "few and far between."

The persecution, or rather prosecution, of the Christians fright-ened the whole community; every one out of the church, and every hypocrite in it was anxious to show that he was not tainted with this inexplicable crime. But when Pliny thought that the "super

stition" could be arrested, his notion was benevolent but not saga. cious. However, the craftiest counsellor could not have forseen the triumphs of Christianity.

I have read you the entire letter. Trajan's reply does honor to his heart. He did all that could be expected of a pagan emperor. As nearly as I recollect, it ran thus:

"Trajan to Pliny, greeting: The course which you adopted, my dear Pliny, in dismissing the cases of those who were charged with being Christians before you, was correct. For no definite rule can be made in such emergencies, which will apply, without discrimination, to every case. Christians must not be looked for and ferreted out if they are informed against and formally complained of, they must receive punishment. On this condition, however. If any shall deny that he is a Christian and give suitable evidence of the fact, as by praying to our deities, although previously suspected, he must after these signs of penitence be pardoned and discharged.

"No anonymous accusations should receive the slightest atten tion. To give it to them would be a pernicious example, unworthy of our age."

SONNET TO THE AMERICAN MUSE.

BY L. F. ROBINSON.

Thou art not Clio, with the harp and scroll,
And Grecian draperies flowing round thy form;
Inspiring fancies, roseate and warm,
Which, fed on passion, wither in the soul.
Daughter of Heaven and Earth! thine anthems roll
When on this aged mountain bursts the storm,
And pale-lipped waves yon rustling lake deform;
And, when the rocking blast has reached its goal,
Thy rainbow tiara in heaven is seen.

Thou dwellest too by fountains and in bowers;

A gentle sprite, with eyes of fire-fly sheen
And wild-vine tresses, wreath and braid of flowers;
In drapery of summer green bedight,

With zephyr voice, and zone with dew-drops bright

Monte Video, Hartford county, Ct.

THE LAST JUDGMENT OF MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI.

BY L'A.

There was a sacred cave in ancient Greece, which rendered every one who entered it, melancholy for the rest of his life. It seems to me that upon a contemplative and dreamy temperament, a sojourn in Rome must have a somewhat similar effect. I remember well and indeed feel to this moment the change it wrought on my own imagination. When before my arrival there. I looked upon the great monuments of art and nature, I thought only of their vastness and their eternity. Since that time, I never leave the contemplation of them, without thinking of the day when the lizard or the owl shall rear its young amid their ruined walls, or the archangel's trump confound them in one universal wreck.

For the two objects around which I most lingered while in Rome, were the Palace of the Cæsars and the altar-piece of the Sistine Chapel. I used to take my book of a quiet, balmy noon, and moving aside the ivy and the shrubs that straggle around, ascend the staircase of the "Golden House," to indulge a lonely revery. The very light of heaven seemed sanctified by the associations of the spot-it was so soft, so golden-just such as one would have repose the livelong day upon one's grave.

Of the many hours spent before Angelo's Last Judgment, I propose to speak to you in the few following pages, and yet I hardly know how to beg excuse for so presumptuous an undertaking. As I sit and gaze on the mighty outlines, daguerreotyped months since upon my soul, while warming fancy, like the artist's lamp, elicits those colors, vivid as when they first blushed into being from the master's hand, I am overwhelmed ; as disheartened as one might feel after attempting to paraphrase Paradise Lost. But at the same time, those who never knew the original may tolerate a bold yet honest imitation. It is for such that I write.

Michael Angelo's Last Judgment bears the same relation to his other productions in its own department of art, that the first English epic does to L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. When your friend asks if you have read Milton, he means, of course, Paradise Lost. When he asks if you have studied Michael Angelo, he would know whether you have entered the Sistine Chapel.

The famous work occupies an extent of wall very much larger than the entire front of an ordinary three-story house, and took seven years in its execution. It is in fresco, but being now about three centuries old, it has lost much of its original brightness, although the outline and expression of the figures are in most in

stances, quite easily distinguishable. From the immense size of the painting, and the comparative smallness as well as bad posi tion of the windows, it is impossible to secure a proper distribution of the light, but perhaps you hardly feel this inconvenience. The groups must be studied, each by itself, like the successive cantos of a poem, and their unity is contemplated rather by the mental than the bodily eye.

One scarce knows which to admire most in this vast work— the sublimity of conception or that of execution. I do love those grand, sweeping lines of Angelo and Rubens, betraying so certainly their master's hand, as her majestic step revealed the goddess-mother to her son.

Et vera incessu patuit Dea.

It is of such that the high Designer of the universe has composed his own great masterpieces. The mountain slope, the long, swelling wave of ocean, the swoop of the eagle are all the sublimer models of these sublime imitations. And the same difficulties of position that most painters shun as fatal, Angelo seems to revel in. In that colossal figure at the right hand of the Virgin, bending forward to look upon the Judge's countenance, the arm. uplifted in conscious awe, and the advanced leg are magnificent triumphs in the art of fore-shortening. There is not one group there, whose astonishing power of drawing and composition would not yield its author an immortality of fame, though the remainder of the mighty work were completely obliterated. You may examine each countenance and you will find not a line but what contributes to the one expression of joy or grief or awe or heart-rending suspense. The attitudes are of the most dignified or the most ter rific character, eloquent interpreters of the deep passion revolving within. The difficulties of perspective, too, vastly aggravated by the height of the picture, are in general most successfully overcome. Amid all the confusion which at first sight seems to pervade the multitude of figures on either hand of the Christ, there yet reigns a most admirable unity. The eye is led naturally from group to group, as from link to link in a perfect chain.

A little above the centre of the painting, stands the colossal figure of the Christ, as Judge of men, with the Holy Mother, in a halfsitting posture, near his right hand. Immediately below the cloud on which these two figures rest, are the angels of the Judgment, blowing that seven-fold blast, whose tremendous echoes startle into life the slumbering dead. On the left hand of the spectator, near the lower corner, the graves are opening, and their ghastly tenants rise slowly to the light. Some come forth, mere vivified skeletons -others, clothed with flesh and with the habiliments of the tomb; a horrid group! Here and there are forms, with difficulty extricating themselves from the superincumbent earth, as in Milton's description of the animals in the sixth day's creation