Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1878-04-29
geligiuts department.
DEATH OF PAUL.


Observer in regard to the death of Paul.
The Palace of the Caesars is identified
by Paul himself as the scene of his Ia
bors, his trial, his deliverance, and his
great success as preacher of the gos-
pei. We know where the palace was,
and the ruins are before US, vast, majes-
tic, suggestive. Even on this spot, the
most distinctly marked, we must very
freely, and trust largely to the contra
dictory speculations of antiquarians; but
the household of Caesar we know was
within the walls of the palaces that COW
cred these grounds, the substitution of
which are disinterred, so that the sun
light of the 10th century illumines the
chambers that were brilliant with i'm
perial splendors in the first. Paul
might have had large congregation
had he preached nowhere in Rome but
in the palace of Nero. The Roman en-
peror had far greater numbers of SER
wants, retainers aud courtiers about
them than any modern princes have.
We find the Basilica, court room, in
which the emperor in person heard law
cases that were appealed to him. In
this, or in one like it on the same
ground, the great Apostle of the Gen.
tiles stood to be tried for his life, the
council of twenty judges being presided
over by Nero himself. The witnesses
who were to testify to his treason had
been brought from the East, and the
lawyers of the Jewish Sanhedrim were
on hand to demand the condemnation of
the prisoner. But the heart of all men
are in the hands of Him whom Paul
served. and Nero gave the prisoner his
life and liberty, to the confusion of the
Jews and the joy of the Apostles
friends.
Beyond the facts we have in the New
Testament Scriptures, there is little to
be received implicitly in regard to the
life and death of Peter or of Paul.
Prudentius states that they suffered
death together on the banks of the Tt
Der. Others insist, that year elapsed
after the death of Peter before Paul was
slain. Eusebius, Epiphanius, and others
say that both men were put to death on
the 29th day of June. AS am quite
conscious that this letter is far from be-
ing worthy of its subject, will follow
it with graphic passage from Cony-
beare and Howson's Life of Paul.
AS the martyr and his executioners
passed on, their way was crowded with
motley multitude of goers and corners
between the metropolis and its harbor-
merchants fastening to superintend the
unlading of their cargoes, sailors eager
to squander the profits Of their last voy-
age in the dissipation of the capital-of-
6cials of the government charged with
the administration of the provinces, or
the command of the legions on the Eu.
pirates or the Rhine; Chaldean astrolo.
gers, Phrygian eunuchs, dancing girls
from Syria, with their painted turbans,
mendlcant priests from Egypt, howliug
for Osiris, Greek adventures eager tc
coin their national cunning into Roman
gold, representatives of the avarice and
ambition, the fraud and lust, the super.
stition and intelligence of the Imperia
world. Through the dust and tumul
of that busy throng, the small troop o.
soldiers threaded their way silently, un
der the bright sky of an Italian mid
summer. They were marching, though
they knew it not, in a procession more
really triumphant than any they haG
eyer followed in the train Of general o.
emperor along the Sacred Way. Thei
prisoner, now at last and forever deliv
cred from captivity, rejoiced to follow
his Lord without the gate" The plac
of execution was not far distant. AM
there the sword of the headsman ende,
his long course of sufferings, and re
leased that heroic soul from that feebl
body. Weeping friends took up hi
corpse, and carried it for burial to thos
subterranean labyriths where, throug
many ages of oppression, the prosecute
Church found refuge for the living an
sepulchres for the dead.
Thus died the apostle, the prophe
and the martyr. bequeathing to tn
Church, in her government and her dil
cipline, the legacy of his apostolic Il
bors; leaving his prophetic words to /
her living oracles; pouring forth b
blood to be the seed of thousand ma
. tyrdoins. Thenceforth among the glor
Gus company of the apostles, among Il
goodly fellowship of the prophets, anon
the noble army of martyrs. his nan
has stood pre-eminent. And where's
ever the Holy Church throughout a
the world doth acknowledge God, the
Paul of Tarsus is revered as the gre
J teacher of a universal redemption ar
a catholic religion-the herald of gls
tidings to all mankind.
I, The great aggravation of the mise