The Abbé de la Blétrie, the historian of the Emperor Julian, does not understand how the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed three times. He says that apparently Julian reckoned as a third destruction the catastrophe which happened during his reign. A curious destruction this! the non-removal of the stones of an old foundation. What could prevent this writer from seeing that the temple, having been built by Solomon, reconstructed by Zorobabel, entirely destroyed by Herod, rebuilt by Herod himself with so much magnificence, and at last laid in ruins by Titus, manifestly made three destructions of the temple? The reckoning is correct. Julian should surely have escaped calumny on this point. The Abbé de la Blétrie calumniates him sufficiently by saying that all his virtues were only seeming, while all his vices were real. But Julian was not hypocritical, nor avaricious, nor fraudulent, nor lying, nor ungrateful, nor cowardly, nor drunken, nor debauched, nor idle, nor vindictive. What then were his vices? 4. Let us now examine the redoubtable argument made use of to persuade us that globes of fire issued from stones. Ammianus Marcellinus a pagan writer, free from all suspicion, has said it. Be it so: but this Ammianus has also said that when the emperor was about to sacrifice ten oxen to his gods for his first victory over the Persians, nine of them fell to the earth before they were presented to the altar. He relates a hundred predictions--a hundred prodigies. Are we to believe in them? Are we to believe in all the ridiculous miracles related by Livy? Besides, who can say that the text of Ammianus Marcellinus has not been falsified? Would it be the only instance in which this artifice has been employed? I wonder that no mention is made of the little fiery crosses which all the workmen found on their bodies when they went to bed. They would have made an admirable figure along with the globes. The fact is that the temple of the Jews was not rebuilt, and it may be presumed never will be so. Here let us hold, and not seek useless prodigies. _Globi Hammarum_--globes of fire, issue neither from stones nor from earth. Ammianus, and those who have quoted him, were not natural philosophers. Let the abbé de la Blétrie only look at the fire on St. John's day, and he will see that flame always ascends with a point, or in a cloud, and never in a globe. This alone is sufficient to overturn the nonsense which he comes forward to defend with injudicious criticism and revolting pride. After all, the thing is of very little importance. There is nothing in it that affects either faith or morals; and historical truth is all that is here sought for. APOSTLES. _Their Lives, their Wives, their Children._