-Jerusalem, which "killed the prophets, and stoned them which were sent unto her," which rejected the mercy of God, and "killed the Prince of Life;"-Jerusalem, out of which it was not possible that a prophet should perish-Jerusalem, which had heard unheedingly the voice of her God, and witnessed, unpitying, the sorrows of her Saviour-Jerusalem itself was not passed by, but, risen from the grave where they had laid him, the Saviour commanded his disciples first to publish the glad tidings of his finished salvation among the people who had insulted, rejected, and crucified Him.

Our Lord had "visited the earth to take out of it a people formed for his name, who should shew forth his praise," to purchase unto himself a church redeemed by his blood and sanctified by his Spirit, which, walking in the light of his truth, should serve him here, and through his grace dwell with him in glory hereafter. That church was small and humble when he ascended up on high and left his Spirit to aid the labours of his humble followers in carrying on the work of grace and promoting the extension of his gospel.

The Acts of the Apostles contain a simple and faithful record of those labours. In obedience to the parting command of their Lord, we find that the apostles continued at Jerusalem, endeavouring to teach to the rebellious house of Israel the things that belonged to her peace; but alas! they would not hear, and thus our Saviour's words of pitying

sorrow were fulfilled, and "now they were hid from her eyes."

66

Stephen was the first Martyr for the religion of Christ, A. D. 34, and his blood was shed in Jerusalem. The simply beautiful narrative of his death, more touching in its unaffected pathos than the most eloquent detail, is sufficient to fill the Christian's eye with tears, and his heart with joy and love. They stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And again, another passage of the account leads us to wonder and adore the transforming power of divine grace. "The witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul:" the same who, under the name of Paul, afterwards "" preached Christ unto the Gentiles," and "laboured more abundantly than they all" in the service of him whom he had persecuted and reviled, when, as he himself tells us, he " verily thought within himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Acts xxvi. 9. At the introduction of the Christian era the Jews were subject to the Romans, whose overgrown empire then nearly comprised the known world; it was not, as they said in our Lord's case, "lawful for them to put any man to death," for which reason he suffered by a Roman punishment, and bore the curse denounced on us,

as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." At the time of Stephen's martyrdom however, the Jews possessed greater opportunities

Pontius Pilate,

of persecuting the Christians. the Roman governor, had been disgraced, and in the absence of a regular governor of Judea, the governor of Syria befriended the Jewish people, lightened the hand of power that kept them down, and left them more at liberty to gratify their malevolent and anti-christian rage.

Their malice, however, instead of injuring the Christian religion, occasioned its extension; for the Christians who were driven from Jerusalem, in the persecution during which Stephen was martyred, were dispersed among other lands, and went forth like the sower in our Lord's parable, Matthew xiii, bearing the good seed of the kingdom, the word of eternal life, and scattering it in all lands whithersoever they went: and thus churches were formed among the Gentiles, and the knowledge of true religion brought to the people who knew not God.

An instance of the blessed effects arising from the dispersion of the apostles from the holy city, and from their very sufferings for Christ's sake, is found in Paul's epistle to the Philippians, to whom he writes, that the saints of Cæsar's household saluted them. Phil. iv. 22. This epistle was written when Paul was a prisoner at Rome; but the time he was detained there was not lost in the service of his God: he "preached the gospel at Rome also." Great, and mighty, and proud Rome heard the call, "Repent and believe the gospel "-heard that in a crucified Redeemer were hid greater

66

treasures of wisdom and knowledge, than she, with all her orators, philosophers, and wise men, could boast. Nor was the call totally unheeded, or even in Pagan, philosophic Rome, there were some I called to be saints." At this time Rome was proudly styled the mistress of the world; the power, the authority of the Romans were everywhere acknowledged, and for this cause you will for some time find the history of Rome in some degree blended with that of the church. The Roman emperor Nero, was the Cæsar Paul alluded to, the Roman emperors being generally styled Cæsars in the sacred writings. You may remember that St. Paul, speaking of his acquittal upon being brought before Nero for the crime of being a Christian, says, “I was delivered from the mouth of the lion." Well might the tyrant Nero be styled a lion,' or yet more savage beast, but there were other and real lions from whom Paul was delivered; for one common and dreadful mode in those days, of putting Christians to death, was by throwing them to wild beasts in the stately amphitheatre of Rome. St. Paul, speaking of his sufferings for Christ, mentions among the number, fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus. The Roman people, polished as they were, delighted in the most cruel amusements, particularly in scenes such as these; for with all their learning and all their fame, the Romans were ignorant of the gentleness of Christ, and in their taste for these things showed the real character of a false and impure religion.

We do not know so much of the Church of Rome at the first introduction of Christianity, as we do of those of other places: and this may be wisely ordered, lest, were high accounts given of it, the Popes of later days, who claim such superiority for Rome, might build more arrogant pretensions on the former celebrity of the church planted there by the Apostle Paul. The epistle addressed by him to the Romans, must, however, make us think highly of their Christian excellence.

Paul was set at liberty, A. D. 63, and went, as is usually supposed, to visit the Christians at Jerusalem, as he had promised. If he then saw Jerusalem, every thing must have grieved him, for he must have seen the day of her calamity approaching. The Jewish war which terminated in the destruction of the Holy City,' was begun by the Romans, A. D. 66, but Paul was spared from witnessing the miseries of his people, having already entered into the "rest that remaineth for the people of God." He had, according to most ecclesiastic writers, returned to Rome the year before, and reaching it at the time of Nero's utmost fury against the Christians, he was put to death by that savage monster.

The cause of this rage against the people of Christ, or at least the pretended cause of it, is well known. Nero, being accused by the Roman people of setting fire to his own city, from the ridiculous desire of building a new capital, and calling it after his