The fact that St. Paul, when addressing the Athenians on the summit of the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, quoted a Greek poet for the saying, "Ye are also his offspring," has led scholars to search for the originals. And the saying is found in two poets who flourished before the Christian era--namely, Aratius and Cleanthes. There are two other quotations (Titus i. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 33), traced to Epimenides and Callimachus. Some have inferred from these quotations that St. Paul may have been familiar with the poets of Pagan antiquity. But the researches of scholars tend to show that the quotations were only common sayings of the period, and the inferences one way or another as to the Pagan learning of the apostle are mere speculations. The occasion also on which St. Paul spoke on Areopagus has been the subject of discussion, as to whether Paul was at the moment charged with some indictable offence against the sanctity of the gods, or whether there was some inquisition held by authority in order to include Jesus as one of the recognised divinities, or whether it was merely an address at the request of the keen-witted Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of the time. No certain conclusion can be arrived at on these moot points. ST. PAUL AND PLAUTILLA. A legend of the death of St. Paul relates that a certain Roman matron named Plautilla, one of the converts of St. Peter, placed herself on the road by which St. Paul passed to his martyrdom, in order to behold him for the last time; and when she saw him, she wept greatly and besought his blessing. The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she would give him her veil to bind his eyes when he should be beheaded, promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked at such a promise; but Plautilla, with a woman's faith and charity, taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, St. Paul appeared to her, and restored the veil stained with his blood. It is also related that, when he was decapitated, the severed head made three bounds upon the earth, and wherever it touched the ground a fountain sprang forth. This legend is sometimes represented in the pictures of the martyrdom of St. Paul. The church of _San Paolo_ at Rome, where the body of St. Paul was interred, rich with mosaics, was consumed by fire in 1823. ST. PAUL AND THE VIPER.