their hopeful offspring.......resembling a venerable tree, branched out into so many luxuriantly thriving boughs....... One heart,......soul,.....and disposition .......seemed to animate the whole of this happy family....The wishes of the parents were preconceived by the children, and obeyed with the instinctive cheerfulness that the members observe to the will of the body......Benevolence......good-nature......and complacency,..........resulting from a harmony of temper.......distinguished their conduct to each other, and spoke in every animated feature........Language was useless in a family like this.......the eye of one sparkled a wish.....and the attentive observance of another fulfiled it........The soul spoke on all occasions ;.....and mutual sympathy was so perfectly organised among them, that its silent harmony filled up every pause.

66

"Can these"..said I.." be the Chris

tians, of whose tenets our priests "speak with abhorrence?.......w hom our rabble treat with ridicule?...... “and our lawgivers proscribe?....Or,

66

are these worthy people inspired "with sanctity and devotion all their "Town?...... Surely the blessings of the

66

golden age teemed not with more -purity than this happy family. "and would be renovated in a world

66

peopled with their virtuous spirit.... "The Stranger called Christians,...... "the New Birth...Nurslings of a New "Creation....Assuredly he had reason ".....if all his disciples resembled this praise-worthy groupe of exalted "human beings."

From my infancy I had been prejudiced against the Christians.....who ....as you know....in our days, were the mockery and contempt of Greece. ..Indeed, I had heard little of them

เ

at Parium, where my retired life excluded me from communication with mankind.....and at Athens, still less.... My grandfather's abhorrence of Jews was rooted and determined ;........so that whatever I did know on the subject, was not calculated to inspire me with respect for Christians, who were considered a Jewish sect;...and, what contributed still to weaken their influence......a sect.....whom the very Jews themselves had expelled their society.

It is therefore a natural inference, that every man thought himself justified in avoiding them and their ceremonies;........particularly...when a prince so wise and good as Trajan..... and men so enlightened as Pliny and Tacitus, held them in open contempt. Having imbibed this aversion with my.education.....I never troubled myself to look for reasons to alter my

opinion....but was satisfied with considering them beneath my attention .....and so positive was my hatred...... if the Stranger at Smyrna had given me the least idea of his being a member of such a sect.....I should have turned from him with disgust ;.....and he would have forfeited all that reverence and respect I was disposed to feel for the superiority of his genius.

Accident had opened my eyes....... and I could no sufficiently lament my .past blindness......Such was the fulness of my heart, I could not avoid testifying its feelings.......The warmth of my expressions seemed strange to the family;......the young folks turned their heads aside....and the old man looked full in my face, as if doubting whether he had not mistaken my principles.

I was quite at a loss to construe this conduct.....and my confusion was

considerably increased by an inadver tence which followed.

The good matron presented me with a cup of wine, which....according to custom.....had previously been diluted with water by the fair hand of her daughter.

I accepted the offering with pleasure .....and, from the force of habit........ poured a little on the floor before I raised it to my lips.....The whole family turned pale......started......and the mother and daughters instantly left the

room.

"Why," said

my host...with a serious but friendly tone......“ did you frighten

my poor family as you have done? "......For more than forty years......

young man!......this floor has not "been defiled by a prophane libation ".....nor has the name of him whom "we adore, been taken in vain be"neath this humble roof.....We serve