dangerous a precedent being once admitted, it became necessary to resort to still other expedients. It was thought as well to ascertain with what degree of veneration the intending swearer might happen to regard that particular member of the calendar whose name was proposed to be invoked. In doubtful cases, therefore, it was not unusual to conduct a deponent from one shrine to another, that among the multitude of oaths one of them at least might prove effectual. A son of Clotaire, being plied by a rebel agent with insurrectionary advice, thought it prudent to conduct his adviser before the altars of no less than twelve churches before he felt himself justified in listening to the representations that were offered him. It would seem, indeed, from the practice of half barbarous nations, that so far from the Deity, or even the monuments of religion, being the immediate subject of the swearing obligation, these were practically the most remote. During the second siege of Rome by the Goths, the ministers of Honorius were called upon to swear solemnly that they would refuse to entertain any overtures of peace, and would wage implacable warfare upon the enemy. With great difficulty were they induced to confirm this engagement with an oath taken by the head of the emperor. This formula was the most impressive and, in effect, the most binding that could well have been resorted to, and it is reported by Gibbon that the ministers were heard to declare that had the same oath been taken by the name of the Deity they would have held themselves free to depart from it. In doing blind obeisance to the arms of warfare or the symbols of authority, the ancient world only varied from the modern as the usages of religion differ from those of idolatry. In Rome, we are told, the spear was sacred to Juno, and in the province of Rhegium was worshipped as Mars. In Scythia the sword was glorified as the messenger of life and death. And it is to be noticed as an evidence of the superstitious sanctity that pervaded warlike implements, that in Rome, according to a half-religious rite, the hair of newly-married women was parted with the point of a spear. The oaths, in fine, of the Western military nations distinctly breathe of the spirit of war, while those of the more dreamful Eastern world are redolent of light and air, of sun and shade. To this day in Servia the popular forms of swearing express dependence and reliance upon the powers of nature. _Taku mi Suntza_, So help me sun; _Taku mi Semlje_, So help me earth, are the methods of asseveration that are in every-day use.