existence and the power of their several deities were equally acknowledged by all; and not one of those numerous religions ever pretended to accuse another of falsehood.

*

The Romans adopted the gods of the different countries which they conquered, recognising them as the tutelary deities of their several districts, and believing it to be their duty, as well as their interest, to render them homage. So firmly were they persuaded of this, that when they laid siege to any town, it was usual to invoke the tutelary god of the place, and to endeavour, by promising him equal or greater honours than he then enjoyed, to bribe him to betray his former votaries. Hence it is evident that there was no room for persecution on the subject of religion. Men could not persecute others for serving gods whom they themselves acknowledged, and in similar circumstances worshipped; especially as these others were equally ready to invoke the gods whom they adored. The peace, then, which subsisted among heathens, on the subject of their idolatrous worship, had nothing whatever to do with toleration. It was the necessary result of their indiscriminating notions of Polytheism.

"The various modes of worship," says Mr Gibbon, "which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.— The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted, with implicit faith, the different religions of the earth.-The thin texture of Pagan mythology was interwoven with various, but not discord

*The Tyrians, when besieged by Alexander, put chains on the statue of Hercules, to prevent that deity from deserting to the enemy.

ant materials.-The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams, possessed in peace their local and respective influence. Nor could the Roman, who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian, who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets and the elements, were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory.The Greek, the Roman, and the barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded themselves, that, under various names, and with various ceremonies, they adored the same deities."

If this representation of the case be just, where was the boasted toleration of Polytheism? On the other hand, sufficient provision was made for the legal exercise of intolerance, both in Greece and in Rome. By the laws of Athens, no strange god was admitted, or foreign worship allowed, till approved and licensed by the Court of Areopagus. Every citizen was bound by oath to defend and conform to the religion of his country. This oath was in the name of the gods, and concluded thus: "I swear by these following deities, the Agrauli, Enyalius, Mars, Jupiter, the Earth, and Diana." The Romans had a law to the same effect. Livy mentions it as an established principle of the early ages of the commonwealth, to guard against the introduction of foreign ceremonies of religion. He says that the prohibiting all foreign religions, and the abolishing every mode of sacrifice that differed from the Roman mode, was a business frequently intrusted by their ancestors to the care of the proper magistrates. For nothing, he observes, could contribute so effectually to the ruin of religion, as the sacrificing after an

external rite, and not after the manner instituted by their fathers. At an early period, the ædiles were commanded to take care that no gods were worshipped except the Roman gods, and that the Roman gods were worshipped after no manner but the established manner of the country. Mæcenas recommended to Augustus to worship the gods himself according to the established form, and to force all others to do the same; and to hate and to punish all those who should attempt to introduce foreign religions. It is obvious then that the Roman custom, of adopting the gods of other countries, while it indicates the extent of their superstition, or the use they made of religion as a state engine, can never show that the religion of individuals, where it differed from the religion of their country, was either connived at as a matter of indifference, or tolerated as an inalienable right of human nature.

In as far as religious persecution did not take place among the Pagans, it was owing to this,-that there was no opportunity or temptation to persecute. But when the Christian religion, which differed from the established worship, and required toleration, and which, from the acknowledged peaceableness and loyal demeanour of Christians, was every way entitled to it, began to gain ground, it was immediately manifest that such a principle as religious toleration had no place in the minds of Pagans. What Gibbon calls "the mild spirit of Polytheism" was then put to the test; and Christians soon found, that any thing but toleration was to be expected. At first, indeed, persecution was in different places begun by the multitude, and Christians did not, for a while, attract the particular notice of the Roman government. But at length it commenced in that quarter, and, except at intervals, did not remit for

nearly three hundred years; after which the persecutions of Paganism ceased with its power.

Tacitus informs us, that the Emperor Nero inflicted exquisite punishments on those people who, he says, were abhorred for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. "They were condemned," he tells us, "not so much for the crime of burning the city," (which Nero had falsely laid to their charge,) "as for their enmity to mankind." Their sufferings, too, were so contrived, that they should be exposed to scorn, and their misery rendered ridiculous.

For this purpose," he adds, "they were enclosed in the skins of wild beasts, that they might be torn to pieces by dogs; or else they were fastened to crosses. Others were appointed to be set on fire; and it was so ordered, that they should, after they had been in torment all day, serve for lights by night." One should suppose that this historian, after stating such things, and adding that they were "really criminal, and deserving exemplary punishment," would have brought forward some proof of their enmity to mankind, and given an account of the crimes for which they were held in abhorrence. But not a word of this appears. No such crimes, it is well known, existed; yet, in the spirit of a persecutor, he joins in the clamour against them, and, without a shadow of reason, asserts, that they were deserving of exemplary punishment.”

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It may be said, however, that this is an example of persecution and intolerance under the reign of a tyrant, whose cruelty is proverbial. Let us then turn to the situation of Christians under one who was esteemed the best and greatest of the Roman Emperors, Trajan, to whom the title of "Optimus" was given by the senate and the people. Under his reign, the third persecution

began in the year 100. About the year 106, Pliny, the younger, was appointed governor of Bithynia. The character of Pliny, as well as that of Trajan, is highly celebrated; and perhaps two men more deservedly esteemed, could not be selected from among the heathens. But the situation of Christians under these men was dreadful. Of this we have the most authentic

evidence, under their own hands.

As soon as Pliny arrived in his province, he wrote to the emperor for direction how to proceed in the trials of the Christians. In his letter, which the reader will afterwards see at full length under the article of "Testimonies from public edicts," Pliny declares he does not well know what is the subject either of punishment or of enquiry; what strictness ought to be used in either; whether any difference ought to be made on account of age; whether repentance should entitle to pardon; and whether the name itself, although no crimes were detected, ought to be punished. "Concerning all these things," he says, "I am in doubt." In the meantime he informs the emperor, that he had put the question to all who were accused, whether they were Christians?

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Upon confessing that they were, I repeated the question a second and a third time, threatening also to punish them with death. Such as still persisted I ordered away to be punished; for it was no doubt with me, that whatever might be the nature of their opinion, contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." He farther says, "that he had received anonymous information against several persons, who, upon examination, denied that they were Christians, or ever had been so; who repeated," he adds, "after me an invocation of the gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to your image,-none of which