mob-violence, a mere Lynch-law proceeding, which the Roman governor would not have sanctioned, if it had been brought under his cognizance, ――being done as it was, so directly in the face of those principles of religious tolerance which the policy of the empire enforced every where, excepting cases in which sedition and rebellion against their dominion was combined with religious zealotism, like the instances of the Gaulanitish Judas, Theudas, and others. Even Jesus himself, was thus accused by the Jews, and was condemned by Pilate for his alleged endeavors to excite a revolt against Caesar, and opposing the payment of the Roman taxes,――as is shown by the statement of all the evangelists, and more particularly by Pilate’s inscription on the cross. The persecution which followed the murder of Stephen was not carried on under the sanction of the Roman government, nor yet was it against their authority; for they permitted to the Sanhedrim the punishment of most minor offences, so long as they did not go beyond imprisonment, scourging, banishment, &c. But the punishment of death was entirely reserved to the civil and military power; and if the Jewish magnates had ever formally transgressed this limitation, they would have been instantly punished for it, as a treasonable assumption of that supreme power which their conquerors were determined to guard with the most watchful jealousy. The Sanhedrim, being thus restricted in their means of vengeance, were driven to the low expedient of stirring up the lawless mob to the execution of these deeds of desperate violence, which their religious rulers could wink at, and yet were prepared to disown, when questioned by the Romans, as mere popular ferments, over which they had no control whatever. So they managed with Stephen; for his murder was no doubt preconcerted among the chief men, who caused the formal preamble of a trial, with the design of provoking the mob, in some way, to this act; in which scheme they were too much favored by the fiery spirit of the martyr himself, who had not patience enough with their bigotry, to conceal his abhorrence of it. Their subsequent systematic and avowed acts of violence, it should be observed, were all kept strictly within the well-defined limits of their penal jurisdiction; for there is no evidence whatever that any of the persecuted Hellenists ever suffered _death_ by the condemnation of the Sanhedrim, or by the sentence of a Roman tribunal. The progress of these events, however, showed that this irritating and harassing system of whippings, imprisonments and banishments, had a tendency rather to excite the energies of these devoted heretics, than to check or crush their spirit of innovation and denunciation. Among the numerous instances of malignant assault on the personal rights of these sufferers, and the cruel violation of the delicacy due to the weaker sex, there must have been, also, many occasions in which the