says the historian, 'irritated the pains of his body, he wished impatiently for death, and hastened the instant of it by his impatience.'

In my next story I shall show you how the church was treated under his successor.

CENTURY III.

CONTINUED.

STATE OF THE CHURCH UNDER CARACALLA-MACRINUS -HELIOGABALUS-ALEXANDER MAXIMUS-GORDIAN

-AND PHILIP.

ARE you frightened, my dear children, at all these hard names, or do you imagine the story must be long indeed that speaks of them all? If you have gone so far in the history of Rome, you will, however, remember how soon one emperor stood in the place of another; how quickly they met the reward of their toils; they waded to the throne through blood, they struggled and fought for empire, and when they had gained it, they found, in most cases, a violent death the reward of their toils.

The reign of the miserable Caracalla began by the murder of his brother, and it terminated by his own. He enjoyed the throne for which he had committed this detestable deed, but six years. Enjoyed I should not say, for there was no enjoyment in his possession of the power and greatness he coveted and obtained. Continually imagining that the forms of the brother he actually murdered, and of the father whom he wished to murder, and

whose life his conduct had shortened, rose up to terrify and accuse him; he could find no happiness in what he once fancied must confer it; and though he was foolish and wicked enough to consecrate in the temple of Serapis the sword with which he had slain his brother Geta, remorse for this wicked deed haunted him through life. Well had it been for this miserable man if remorse had led to repentance, and he had sought for pardon from Him who alone is able to forgive, but alas! it led him, as it does many others, only into the commission of other crimes, and Caracalla tried by taking away all that could remind him of his guilt, to banish its remembrance. You will be shocked when I tell you, that with this foolish and desperately wicked intention, he put to death twenty thousand of his subjects whom he supposed to be friendly to the murdered Geta. It is not, however, the detail of his crimes that I wish to give you, I said I would only praise or blame the emperors as they appear worthy of each in their conduct to the church of Christ; and of Caracalla in this respect I have nothing evil to relate. From a prince, one of whose maxims alone might designate him an ambitious and cruel tyrant, indulgence to the Christians was not perhaps to be expected; yet, though he held and practised the maxim of Severus, to secure the affections of the soldiers, and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little moment,' in justice to Caracalla, vile as he was, I must tell you that on his accession to the throne, Christian persecu

tion ceased, and the monster Caracalla, as he is generally called, was not only just but kind to the people of Christ.

'What communion hath Christ with Belial?' we might often ask, in reading the history of the church; for though Christians are a distinct and separate people, we are sometimes surprised at finding the worst of characters treating them with greater kindness than they meet with from those who are esteemed in the world's opinion to be models of virtue. "God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways like our ways," he can make use of whatever instrument he sees fit, and it becomes us not to draw any rash, presumptuous conclusion, but to see his hand governing and overruling all things. It is said, that the kindly feelings of Caracalla, towards the Christian part of his subjects, arose from the influence of his first impressions in their favour; his nurse was a Christian, and it is probable that she taught his infant heart, before pride and the desire of power had exerted their malignant sway, to feel for and to esteem "the children of her people." Proculus too, the Christian who I told you had once saved the life of the Christian persecutor Severus, and who lived in his palace, might have influenced him in their favour; indeed, so early did Caracalla show his sentiments towards them, that it is said, that, when only seven years old, he manifested the greatest resentment at seeing a boy beaten because he was a Christian. But though, from the effects

of early impressions he was favourable to Christians, and being restrained by God's power, he never became their enemy, Caracalla could not be friendly to Christ, for he lived and died in the dominion of sin. Yet he died on a pilgrimage! strange infatuation, that would think by an act of penance or devotion to compensate for a life of tyranny and unholiness! On his way to the famous Temple of the Moon, he was stabbed by a desperate soldier to whom he had refused some favour. A. D. 217.

Of Macrinus and Heliogabalus, who successively succeeded to the Roman throne, I have not any thing to relate. Amidst the absurdities of the latter he is said to have wished to have the rites of Christian worship brought to Rome: why I call this absurdity you will easily see, when you reflect on the precepts of the Gospel, the lives, opinions, and actions of its followers. All is here totally opposed to the wild and wicked schemes of so worthless a prince; and certainly, if he could pretend to admire Christianity, he never pretended to imitate it. He, in his turn, was massacred, and was succeeded by his cousin Alexander.

It is very pleasant in reviewing the pages of history to light on one pure and amiable character; and after all the bloody tyrants and the unfeeling monsters who have left their names and their vices to equal detestation, it is doubly pleasing to hear of one good Emperor of Rome. Such was Alexander, who at the early age of seventeen ascended the Roman throne.