Who does not see the hand of Providence in her retribution, as well as in the fate of Herculaneum and Pompeii? These cities were destroyed in A. D. 79, by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and buried by a shower of ashes, sand and stones. Herculaneum was situated about eight miles south of the present city of Naples, and Pompeii about fifteen miles eastward. Thus they remained buried for nearly seventeen hundred years. Extensive excavations have been made during the past century, disclosing the city walls, streets, temples, theatres, private dwellings, domestic utensils and statuary. Many objects have been found which indicate the wicked and licentious character of the inhabitants, and go to prove that they were ripe for the destruction which awaited them. The inhabitants died just as the catastrophe found them, guests in their {46} banqueting halls, soldiers at their posts, prisoners in their dungeons, maidens at the mirror and students at their books. [Image: Eruption of Mount Vesuvius.] {47} When the city was unearthed, the houses were found standing. The interior paintings were still fresh, and the skeletons remained in the very position and the very place in which death had overtaken them so long ago. The marks left by the cups of the tiplers still remained on the counters; the prisoners still wore their fetters, the ladies their chains and bracelets. The researches are still going on, new wonders are every day coming to light, and we shall soon have quite a distinct idea of Roman towns in the first century of the Christian era. Rome, from before the commencement of the Christian era, had been the political and military capital of the world. From her gates issued forth those imperial armies that conquered nations and crushed the liberties of mankind. Her rule was not one of reason but one of force. From the age of Augustus Caesar her power had been waning, and when the Emperor Constantine removed the capital to Constantinople, Rome became a city of secondary importance. Though her political prestige was gone she became the seat of a religious empire which had and still has a mighty influence in the nations of the earth. The wrongs which she inflicted on others have recoiled with terrible retribution on herself. Her ruins are silent and majestic witnesses of the providence of God. To the reign of Constantine the Great, must be referred the commencement of those dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand years. Constantine, while dwelling at Rome, had murdered his son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and had suffocated, in a steam bath, his wife, Fausta, to whom he had been married twenty years, and who was the mother of three of his sons.