wont to be made,' in chambers on the 'third loft,' often in the streets, often in the market-place, in the fields and by solitary waysides, on shipboard and by the sea-shore, 'in the midst of Mars Hill' at Athens, and, when persecution began to darken, amid the deep gloom of the sepulchral caverns of Rome. The time had evidently come, referred to by the Saviour, when neither in the temple at Jerusalem, nor on the mountain deemed sacred by the Samaritans, was the Father to be worshipped; but all over the world, 'in spirit and in truth.' Until Christianity had become corrupt, we do not hear even of ornate churches, far less of Christian altars, of an order of Christian priests, of the will-worship of consecration, or of the presumed holiness of insensate matter,--all unauthorized additions of man's making to a religion fast sinking at the time under a load of human inventions,--additions which were in no degree the more sacred, because filched, amid the darkness of superstition and error, from the abrogated Mosaic dispensation. The following is, we believe, the first notice of _fine_ Christian churches which occurs in history;--we quote from the ecclesiastical work of Dr. Welsh, and deem the passage a significant one:--'From the beginning of the reign of Gallienus till the nineteenth year of Diocletian,' says the historian, 'the external tranquillity of the Church suffered no general interruption. The Christians, with partial exceptions, were allowed the free exercise of their religion. Under Diocletian open profession of the new faith was made even in the imperial household; nor did it prove a barrier to the highest honours and employments. In this state of affairs the condition of the Church seemed in the highest degree prosperous. Converts were multiplied throughout all the provinces of the empire; and the ancient churches proving insufficient for the accommodation of the increasing multitudes of worshippers, _splendid edifices were erected in every city_, which were filled with crowded congregations. But with this outward appearance of success, the purity of faith and worship became gradually corrupted; and, still more, the vital spirit of religion suffered a melancholy decline. Pride and ambition, emulation and strifes, hypocrisy and formality among the clergy, and superstitions and factions among the people, brought reproach on the Christian cause. In these circumstances the judgments of the Lord were manifested, and the Church was visited with the severest persecution to which it ever yet had been subjected.'