The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-03-29

troops toward Rome. "A conhagration of
the city and massacre of the senators
was to secure his entrance. Cicero was
to be assassinated before Catiline could
leave Rome. The intelligence reached
Cicero that night, and forewarned he was
forearmed The assassins, upon visiting
his house at daybreak, found the doors
shut and barred against them And now
the hour has come for the great orator to
reveal to the astonished capital the ram
ifcations of plot which threatened the
very framework of the nation, and which
involved men of all ranks, and some of
the greatest names in Roman history
What splendid occasion A nation at
stake and a city for an audience In the
Forum-that quadrangle as it was al
ready fast becoming, surrounded on all
sides by magnificent halls and temples,
and thickly set within with quaint me-
MORALS of Rome's infancy and with the
statues of her national heroes, on the far
famed Rostra, fanked on one side by the
dals on which senator's now occupied the
places of an obsolete assembly of patri-
clans, and on the other side by the vast
area which was crowded by the undis-
tinguished throng of knights and plebe-
ians, foreigners and clients, with the Pal
atine mount behind him and the temple,
crowned heights CT the Capitoline rising
proudly on his lett seem to see Cicero
rising with the flush of indignation on his
cheek and to hear him pronounce the
magnificent grafton which must have
frozen the blood in the veins and blanched
the cheeks of his listeners, and which re-
vealed to the astounded traitor as he sat
alone and communicated on his bench
in the Senate house, the discontinue of
his project, and the necessity of fleeing,
while there was yet time, from the exc
cratlons of an awakened city
Thus every corner of that once famous
Forum teens with remembrances, and to
the left of the elevated point upon which
we stand and gaze upon the long open
area now strewn with naught save the
columns Of ruined temples, may still be
seen the deep and fearful dungeon
The Mamertine Prison,
where, as tradition asserts, st. Paul and
also st. Peter awaited the crown of mar
! tyrdom. With emotion we thought of
the hour when detachment of Nero s
soldiers, returning from the East, lead up
this self same hillside the great Apostle
to the Gentiles Already is he known in
the Roman metropolis, for while yet fifty
miles distant at Appii Forum, several
persons from the city meet him with
greetings Of love and respect, and when
thirty miles distant from the walls, at the
Three Taverns, others come to greet him
also. Yes, that prisoner, though known
to so few, is more illustrious than any
king or queen ever brought back from
wars to grace an Emperor's triumph. He
carries with him truths more pregnant
with important results, than all the past
annals of Rome. What procession that
must have been as Paul entered the gates
OF Rome and passed the Forum with his
stern guards and few brethren. To him
whose noble heart was filed with "the
love of God" there could be nothing daz-
zling in the splendor of the great CITY.
Yet as he passed temple and theatre and
altar and college, seeing everywhere the
tokens of religion graced by art, digni-
fined by antiquity, fortified by power,
and cherished by the sympathies of a
great people, how weak and powerless
the poor prisoner must have seemed to
himself to have been. This puny heart
light up the spark of revolution against
the ancient hills of Olympic piety "a
glow-worm think of overthrowine the
Alps Had Nero the Emperor, or Sen
eca the philosopher, then living, or the
great priests and senator's of Rome seen
that spark of antagonistic zeal burning
In the soul OF the poor Christian, they
would have deemed it beneath even their
mockery. But in that spark of love to
Christ in Paul's soul, was a power the
Mamertine dungeon could not imprison.
an impulse stronger than the sh ock of
cohorts in mortal battle, stronger than
the Senate and people of Rome. That
spark was kindled by a CLEAN from the
eye of the eternal, and was destined to
consume all that Rome adorned.
At the end of the Forum rises an ex-
quisite triumphal arch, not so massive as
some others, but singularly interesting,
for it is the
Arch Of Titus,
set up in honor Of his conquest of Jeru-
salem, and the carvings upon it repre-
sent his triumphal return to Rome
There is Titus depicted, standing on his
chariot, surrounded by his rel-crowned
soldiers, the captive Jews led behind
and there IS represented, and this is the
only representation we have of it the
ark Of God with the seven branched cold
on candidate vocf,u.