_ 24 Translator’s Note._—Christ has said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”—Matt. xi. 28-30. I would ask the learned author, whether these words of our Saviour are not sufficiently mild, tender, and consoling, and whether there was any necessity to _consecrate_ some new ideas in order to temper their severity? _ 25 Author’s Note._—Amongst a multitude of proofs I shall choose only one, in order to show with what facility the worship of Mary swept away in its progress the remnants of Paganism which were still covering Europe:—Notwithstanding the preaching of St Hilarion, Sicily had remained faithful to the ancient worship. After the council of Ephesus, we see eight of the finest Pagan temples of that island becoming in a very short time churches dedicated to the Virgin. These temples were, 1. of Minerva, at Syracuse; 2. of Venus and Saturn, at Messina; 3. of Venus Erigone, on the Mount Eryx, believed to have been built by Eneas; 4. of Phalaris, at Agrigent; 5. of Vulcan, near Mount Etna; 6. the Pantheon, at Catania; 7. of Ceres, in the same town; 8. the Sepulchre of Stesichorus.—V. _Aprile Cronologia Universale di Sicilia_. Similar facts may be found in the ecclesiastical annals of every country. _ 26 Translator’s Note._—The time when the church is to accomplish this purification has, alas! not yet arrived. 27 Beugnot, vol. ii., book xii., chap. 1, pp. 261-272. 28 The opinions of different writers on the number of Christians in the Roman empire at the time of Constantine’s conversion greatly varies. The valuation of Staudlin (“Universal Geshichte der Christlichen Kirche,” p. 41, 1833) at half of its population, and even that of Matter (“Histoire de l’Eglise,” t. i. p. 120), who reduces it to the fifth, are generally considered as exaggerated. Gibbon thinks that it was the twentieth part of the above-mentioned population; and the learned French academician. La Bastie (“Memoires de l’Academie des Inscripter,” &c.) believes that it was the twelfth. This last valuation is approved by Chastel (“Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme en Orient,” 1850, p. 36) as an average number, though it was much larger in the East than in the West. The celebrated passage of Tertullian’s “Apology,” in the second century, where he represents the number of Christians in the Roman empire to be so great, that it would have become a desert if they had retired from it, is considered by Beugnot (vol. ii. p. 188) as the most exaggerated hyperbole which has ever been used by an orator.