to extirpate the religion of Christ, so extensive and persevering, that nothing less than a divine interposition seemed to have preserved it from total extinction. Diocletian was born in Dalmatia, in the year of Christ 245; and, on the death of Numerianus, was saluted Emperor by the army at Chalcedon, near Constantinople, in 284. He was himself a man of mild, philosophic, character, but was instigated by his colleague in the Empire, Galerius Maximianus. This atrocious man was born in Dacia: his father was unknown, but he himself gave out that his mother conceived, on the banks of the Danube, by Mars, in the shape of a serpent. Among other observances by which the Christians were now distinguished was their abstaining from meats offered to idols. This so offended the mother of Galerius that she made it a pretext for urging her son to persecute them, who was himself greatly inclined to it; and after much entreaty he obtained, in the year 302, from Diocletian, those dreadful edicts which have justly stigmatized the character of that Emperor. Armed with this authority, the Christians, who

were at this time spread over all the provinces of the vast Roman Empire, were every where pursued; and I have visited, in the Gulf of Nicomedia and other remote places in the East, caverns in the sides of nearly inaccessible mountains, where they endeavoured to find refuge and concealment during this dismal period. Many of the saints and martyrs recognised by the Greek church perished on this occasion; and they still show, in the church of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon, the implements of torture by which she and numbers of her friends were put to death. In this way historians assert that in one province alone seven hundred and fifty thousand Christians perished by various kinds of cruel deaths; and so complete was supposed to be the extirpation of the sect that coins were struck and the following inscriptions set up, recording the fact that the Christian superstition was now utterly exterminated, and the worship of the gods restored, by Diocletian, who assumed the name of Jupiter, and Maximian, who took that of Hercules.

DIOCLETIANUS JOVIUS ET

MAXIMIAN: HERCULIUS

CES AUG:

AMPLIFICATO PER ORIENTEM ET OCCIDENTEM

IMP: ROM:

ET

NOM: CHRISTIANORUM

DELETO QUI

REMP: EVER

TEBANT.

Diocletian Jove, and Maximian Hercules, August Cæsars, having increased the Roman Empire in the East and West, and extirpated the Christians who were overturning the republic.

DIOCLETIAN: CES:

AUG: GALERIO IN ORI

ENTE SUPER

STITIONE CHRIST:

UBIQUE DELETA ET CUL

TU DEOR: PROPAGATO.

To Diocletian Cæsar, and Augustus Galerius, in the East, having every where extirpated the Christian superstition and restored the worship of the gods.'

N

'

"It is not more remarkable than true that the above statement is corroborated in all its minutiæ by that celebrated letter of Lentulus. Every lineament of the face as here described corresponds exactly with the delineation on the Medal; nay, the very flowing of the auburn locks on the shoulders of the Saviour' is faithfully depicted so that one would be led to suppose that the Medal or some similar representation lay before Lentulus while writing this account of the Prophet for the information of his government. Perhaps the Man Christ' himself struck his vision while preaching his sublime DOCTRINE to the multitude, and enforcing those divine precepts which he had received from his heavenly Father.3 No wonder,

3 "Divine precepts which he had received from his heavenly Father; "this is as it should be; it at once refutes the author's previous assumption of the wisdom and precepts of Christ having been learnt in Egypt in order to prepare him for that ministry which was to make wise unto salvation. To believe, indeed, that God descended from Heaven in order to receive instruction from any nation upon Earth is what I can never make up my mind to do. Josephus informs us with respect to Egypt that Abraham visited that land "to confer

then, that the Roman Prefect was deeply impressed with the display of eloquence that flowed from the Saviour;'-nay, that he even felt an awe and reverence for his person is evident from every line of that admirable letter. There can

with their priests, (and discourse with them of divine things and their knowledge as touching God,) as also to follow them, if they were more grounded in understanding, or reconcile them, if his judgment were more assured than theirs." But we learn from the same author that he found them "divided into different sects and opinions, and through divisions incensed one against the other;" and that "their opinions (different and confuted by themselves) in respect to religion were most vain and devoid of all truth." Is it then likely, or can it be supposed possible, that the Messiah was indebted for His DOCTRINE to such a Babel of Error-to the professors of a theology most vain and devoid of all truth?

The same author informs us that Abraham would willingly have taught them the science of Astronomy, but they spurned his counsel on that important subject, and so pertinaciously did they maintain their own vain and idolatrous practices that the pious Patriarch quitted the land of Egypt in disgust. In fact, the judgments inflicted by God upon the science or idolatrous worship of Egypt are alone sufficient to prove their pernicious meaning.

We may likewise remark of Moses that his being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians was but an incitement to him to teach the reverse! He taught as God inspired-not as man fancied.