single incident in the strange and contradictory impressions which the new religion produced on the minds of the Romans. A passage of Suetonius, in his history of Claudius, would show that the Christians were confounded with the Jews, for, speaking of that Emperor, he says, "he expelled the Jews from the Capital, for, at the instigation of _Chrestus_, they were ever exciting troubles in the state." _Chrestus_ in the Greek pronunciation, has the same sound with Christus; and we may easily conceive that what the Christians said of their invisible Lord and Master, that he interdicted them such and such Pagan rites, may in a matter so totally strange and unintelligible to the Romans, have been easily misunderstood, as applying to a chief and party-leader actually in existence. In the same way, by the troubles spoken of in the passage above cited, may be understood the accustomed and just refusal of the Christians to comply with the illicit demands of the Pagans. A fuller light is thrown on this subject by the narrative of Tacitus in his history of Nero; and, however much the Christian religion may be misrepresented by the Roman historian, his account has still a character thoroughly historical, and amidst its very misrepresentations, is perfectly intelligible, if we take care to distinguish the chief historical traits. When Nero, at the height of his crimes and presumption had set Rome on fire, in order to have a lively and dramatic spectacle of the burning of Troy, he afterwards strove to screen himself from the odium of this misdeed, and to throw the blame entirely upon the Christians, who must have been then tolerably numerous in Rome. Tacitus thinks they were not the authors of the conflagration laid to their charge; and his feelings revolt at the inhuman cruelties which Nero inflicted upon them; but, he adds, many horrible things were said of them, and that it was known in particular they were animated by sentiments of hatred towards the whole human race. That we are to understand by this hatred towards the human race nothing more than that rigid rejection by the Christians of all the idolatrous rites, maxims and doctrines of the Heathen world, is perfectly evident of itself. Among the horrible things, of which the Christians were accused, we are in all probability to understand _the repasts of Thyestes_, for their enemies make use of that very term in their accusations;--accusations which were received with eager credulity by a populace that held them in abhorrence. Although this charge was no doubt afterwards the effect of malicious calumny, and deliberate falsehood, yet it is very possible that a gross misconception may originally have given rise to it, and that this accusation, egregiously false as it was, proceeded from an obscure and confused knowledge of the mystery of the holy sacrifice, and of the reception of the Sacrament in that divine feast of love solemnized in the Christian assemblies.