But all this care has proved useless. The splendid sarcophagus of white marble has long since been removed from its little chamber, so massively built up, and may be seen standing in the open court of the Farnese palace, exposed to the action of every storm. And the tomb itself has been devoted to a purpose far different from that intended by the builder. "This," says Sismondi, "with the tombs of Adrian and Augustus, became fortresses of banditti in the thirteenth contury, and were taken by Brancellone, the Bolognese Governor of Rome, who hanged the marauders from the walls." Adjoining this "woman's grave," are the ruins of a fortress which, in the middle ages, was a stronghold in succession of the Savelli and Gaetani families. Their armorial bearings are still to be seen upon the walls, and the round windows of the chapel, standing above the ruins, give them a most picturesque appearance. In the valley beneath, are the wide-spread remains of what is commonly called “the Circus of Caracalla.” It is, of course, crumbling into decay; yet every part may still easily be traced. The great gateway, the high-raised balcony for the Emperor, the carceres, or cells, in which the chariots stood previous to starting, the spina, or division through the centre, around which they swept in the eager contest, all can be marked. The course was about half a mile around, and was repeated several times; but it is evident that the victory must have depended principally upon the skill of the charioteer in turning. The wall is now broken, so that we easily sprang over it; and all is fast settling down to the level of the meadow. The high vines are growing over it; the flowers are crushed beneath our feet as we walk; and no sign of life meets our view, but the green lizards which sport among the ruins.

Our last place of visit was the Fountain of Egeria, a name which, throughout the world, is associated with all that is poetical. Twenty-five centuries have gone since Numa consecrated this spot, and many generations have passed away, yet it still continues to be a place of pilgrimage. Our guide led us by the remains of the old Temple of Bacchus, and around the base of the hill, till suddenly the grotto opened before us. It is under an antique arch, on which the hill seems to rest, and at its extremity the little spring gushes out, and flows over its pebbly channel as clear as crystal, until it is lost in the green meadow which stretches away in front. Around the grotto are niches, which once evidently contained statues, but they have long since gone. One only, a recumbent figure, sadly mutilated, remains, above the spot from which the stream trickles out. Juvenal objected in his day to the marble ornaments, and the art which had spoiled the grotto, declaring that the goddess would be much more honoured if the fountain was enclosed only with its border of living green—

Herba.

viridi si margine clauderet undas

But time has at length wrought the change which he desired. The stones of the old chamber are clothed with moss and evergreens ; the Adiantum Capillus waves over the fountain, while from the roof hang down long wreaths of creeping plants, till they obscure the entrance, and diffuse a twilight gloom within. And when, standing before this little shrine, we look around, we see, on the one side, the thick grove, dark with shade, in which Numa is said to have met the goddess, and, on the other, the sweeping arches of the Claudian Aqueduct, with the purple hills for their back-ground, extending far along the scene. They stretch over the wide Campagna, till they reach the spot where once stood the vanished palaces of Maecenas and Domitian, and we lose sight of them among the distant mountains of Albano.

Altogether, this is as poetical a spot as the earth can furnish; nor could one be found more lovely even among the Grecian solitudes which Theocritus so beautifully describes. The dryad and nymph have, indeed, gone for

ever, yet, fable or not, we cannot help feeling, as we think of the legend, —

"Whatsoe'er thy birth,

Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth."

-Christmas Holidays in Rome.

CHRISTIAN RESOLUTIONS AGAINST EVIL THINKING AND SPEAKING.

(To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine.)

CHATEAUBRIAND has written the life of Rancé, the celebrated Abbé of La Trappe, in France, and described the fearful austerities to which his, as Protestants are persuaded, mistaken opinions led him. But, on some points, most important ones, of Christian morals, his views were remarkably just, and his conduct in reference to them noble. By some of his enemies, at the time that the Jesuits were seeking the ruin of Port Royal and its inmates, dreading its learning and hating its piety, Rancé was accused of favouring their errors, and also those of the Molinists. He replies as good Catholic," that he was fully submissive to the orders of the Church. But on the subject of thinking and speaking ill of others, he wrote these most valuable sentences, worthy of being written in letters of gold. He acknowledged that he had spoken against the Jansenists, believing that he might do it safely "on the testimony of persons pious and orthodox." He then adds, however,―

66

a

"But I was mistaken; and it will be no excuse for me at the judgment of God, that I had believed and spoken on the report and credit of others. This has made me adopt two resolutions, which I hope to keep inviolable, by the grace of God. One, to believe no evil of any persons, whatever the piety of those who tell me of it, unless they give me sufficient evidence : the other, to say nothing against them, even with the best evidence, unless I am bound to do so by an indispensable necessity. He who fears the judgments of God, and who knows that he has deserved to be judged with rigour, is most unhappy when he judges his brethren, since the greatest of all the means we can employ to engage Jesus Christ to judge us in mercy, is ourselves to abstain from judging.”

In a subsequent part of the same letter he says,

"I have remained in repose and silence; and as I often think of the great truth, that God will judge without mercy those who have judged their brethren without compassion, I always abstain from condemning the sentiments of others, not having proper evidence and certainty on the subject. I have no design to please men: I neither seek their approbation, nor their censure. I know too well that God never shows more clearly that he does not reject the services of those who are his, than when he permits them to be persecuted. The only pain I suffer is to see people, professing to act conscientiously, act in this way, as if they knew not that God will judge calumniators with as much rigour and severity, as he will adulterers and murderers."

C.

TRADES, &c., IN JERUSALEM.

THIS morning being rather wet and lowering, and not liking to go far, I thought I would take a range among the different trades of the city. The first I fell in with was a baker: the oven was rather larger than the common brick ovens in Cumberland, in which the farmers bake their large brown loaves. In part of the oven the fire is kept burning the whole time, the baker throwing in a little fuel every two or three minutes, not unlike dry heather, which grows upon the mountains. The dough is made of coarse wheat-flower mixed up with warm water, with a little old leaven put into it, which serves for yeast or barm. This is done a few hours before baking. A man next makes it into cakes about ten inches in diameter, after which the baker puts three of them upon a shovel with a long handle, and places them in that part where the fire was not burning, and continues to throw in about three cakes every quarter of a minute; and when he has got about a dozen in, he begins to draw the baked ones out, so that he bakes a dozen in about four minutes; but when the oven is well heated, the business is done in less than two minutes. I next went to a school where there were ten or a dozen boys, of about seven or eight years of age; all sitting in a circle cross-legged on the floor, like so many tailors, with the master among them, sitting in the same posture. They had every one an Arabic book in his hand, and all read aloud together, keeping their bodies in a rocking motion, so that their faces nearly touched their books, and they all kept time with each other in the most orderly manner. I do not know whether this motion has any favourable influence on the mind, but it certainly must be a very good thing for exercising the body, of which these boys, penned up in so small a place, and sitting cross-legged, must stand greatly in need. They were very attentive to their lessons, never once taking their eyes from their books, even to look at a stranger. The master sometimes spoke, which, I suppose, was to correct them. A little further on, I visited the shop of a roaster and grinder of coffee. The process of roasting is very simple. A large pan is set over a slow charcoal fire, and a person is appointed to stir it until it is sufficiently roasted. The grinder's task seemed more difficult. A stone hollowed out, and made like a large drug-mortar, lay before him; and for a pestle he had a large wooden mallet, with the end made round, and nearly large enough to fill the mortar. With this he was pounding the coffee; and every time the pestle came down he sighed out "hah," just like one driving stakes, or cutting stones in a quarry. I examined some of the coffee, and found it very much burned hence I knew the reason why my coffee was always so black and disagreeable. The next place I visited is what serves in Jerusalem for a cabinet-maker's shop; but, as little furniture is wanted, the main employment seems to be in using the lathe, for making pipe-handles, or any little thing that wants throwing. It is moved by an instrument like a fiddlestick, the middle of the string being wrapped once round the wood that is to be turned; and by drawing it backwards and forwards the wood is made to go round, while the man with the other hand holds the chisel to it. He showed me some of his work, which was very smooth and nice. I next found my way among the blacksmiths; and going into a shop, I found there was no chimney in it, but the fire-place was built on the middle of the floor, and the smoke had to find its way out at the door. I saw a boy blowing the bellows, and I went to examine them; but I found them of

:

such a shape that, though I have endeavoured to give a description of all that I have seen, such, at least, as I have thought of any importance, I am unable correctly to describe these bellows.-Lowthian's Visit to Jerusalem.

BAXTER ON NATIONAL PIETY.

THESE are the thoughts, the affections, the breathing of every regenerate, gracious soul. For your souls' sake inquire now, is it thus with you? Or have you thus returned with self-loathing unto the Lord, and firmly engaged your souls to him at your entrance into a holy life? I must be plain with you, gentlemen, or I shall be unfaithful; and I must deal closely with you, or I cannot deal honestly and truly with you. As sure as you live, yea, as sure as the word of God is true, you must all be such converted men, and loathe yourselves for your iniquities, or be condemned, as impenitent, to everlasting fire. To hide this from you is but to deceive you, and that in a matter of a thousand times greater moment than your lives. Perhaps I could have made shift, instead of such serious admonitions, to have wasted this hour in flashy oratory, and neat expressions, and ornaments of reading, and other things that are the too common matter of ostentation with men that preach God's word in jest, and believe not what they are persuading others to believe. Or if you think I could not, I am indifferent, as not much affecting the honour of being able to offend the Lord, and wrong your souls, by dallying with holy things. Flattery in these things of soul-concernment is a selfish villany, that hath but a very short reward; and those that are pleased with it to-day, may curse the flatterer for ever. Again, therefore, let me tell you that which I think you will confess, that it is not your greatness, nor your high looks, nor the gallantry of your spirits, that scorn to be thus humbled, that will serve your turn when God shall deal with you, or save your carcases from rottenness and dust, or your guilty souls from the wrath of the Almighty.

Gentlemen, though you are all here in health, and dignity, and honour, to-day, how little a while is it, alas! how little, until you shall be every man in heaven or hell! Unless you are infidels, you dare not deny it. And it is only Christ and a holy life that is your way to heaven; and only sin, and the neglect of Christ and holiness, that can undo you. Look, therefore, upon sin as you should look on that which would cast you into hell, and is daily undermining all your hopes. O that this honourable assembly could know it in some measure as it shall be shortly known! and judge of it as men do, when time is past, and delusions vanished, and all men are awakened from their fleshly dreams, and their naked souls have seen the Lord. O then what laws would you make against sin!

We beseech you, therefore, for the sake of a poor distressed land, let our recovery begin with you. God looks so much at the rulers of a nation in his dealings with them, that ordinarily it goes with the people as their rulers are. Until David had numbered the people, God would not let out his wrath upon them, though it was they that were the great offenders. If we see our representative body begin in loathing themselves for all their iniquities, and turning to the Lord with all their hearts, we should yet believe that He is returning to us, and will do us good after all our provocations. Truly, gentlemen, it is much from you that we must fetch our comfortable or sad prognostics of the life or death of this diseased land. Whatever you do, I know that it shall go well with the righteous; but,

for the happiness or misery of the nation in general, it is you that are our best prognostication. If you repent yourselves, and become a holy people to the Lord, it promiseth us deliverance; but if you harden your hearts, and prove despisers of God and holiness, it is like to be our temporal, and sure to be your eternal, undoing, if saving grace do not prevent it.From a Sermon preached before the House of Commons, by the Rev. R. Baxter, April 30th, 1660.

APPENDIX TO THE REV. J. P. LOCKWOOD'S ACCOUNT OF GENERAL OGLETHORPE.

(To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine.)

THOSE of your readers who were interested in the account given of the General, and his interview with Tomo Chachi in 1732, (page 577,) and the subsequent presentation of the Indian Chiefs to their Majesties at Kensington, (notes, pages 578, 579,) may like to see the following memorandum of an interview which took place at the Wesleyan Mission-House, Hatton-Garden, in 1817, between the Ministers of the two London Circuits and six American Indians. One of these was dressed in his native habit, with his quiver at his back, and his bow in his hand. The dress was of skins, with a turban of feathers. The conversation was held between the Rev. James Wood, on the part of the Ministers, and one of the Indians, who presided as Chief, through the medium of an interpreter. The interpreter found his way among them at the age of fourteen, and had lived with them for sixteen years; during which time he had acquired a tolerable knowledge of their language. The Indians addressed the Ministers by the name of brothers, and gave Mr. Wood the appellation of uncle. His spectacles they conceived were his badge of office. Mr. Bunting put them on the Chief, who instantly shut his eyes, and could not be made to understand their use. The following is part of the conversation:

Mr. Wood. "We are glad to see you."

Indian." We are glad to see you, also; but hope you are not sick in the breast because the Chief has not come."

Mr. W.-" Give us some account of your tribe."

I.-"We are six hundred warriors, besides a numerous company of men, women, and children; but have never engaged in a war since the American Revolution."

Mr. W.-"Do you observe the Sabbath?"

I.-"Yes; once in two months a man addresses the Great Spirit, and admonishes us of our faults."

Mr. W.-" What becomes of men after death?"

I." Those who are good have their minds and their blood taken up to the Great Spirit; the bad go to the Evil Spirit. If the bad should repent, namely, be sorry for a few years, and never do ill again, the Great Spirit forgives them."

Mr. W.-" What do you know respecting the creation of the world?” I.-"The world at first was all water; and the land grew on the back of an enormous turtle, which had floated on the surface increasing in size. After one week the Great Spirit created man, and commanded him to till the land; for many days he remained sulky, and would not work, complaining of his lonely condition. The Great Spirit then took out one of