controversy seldom converts,) declined, saying that he would complete the circle, and come in the end to find himself believing the true faith he left at the first. And yet Monica persisted and implored aid; the bishop but replied, "Continue as you have begun; surely the son of so many tears cannot perish." These words struck up a new light in the mother's despairing soul; she accepted them as prophecy, and importuned no more. Now it came to pass that these words were fulfilled, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem: "And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was the portion of all my labour Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." This world-old tale of disenchantment, the soul awaking when the sense is sated! The golden apples turned to ashes on the lips. The shell of the guilty love was broken. The dearest died. The high-placed refulgent fame so eagerly panted after seemed poor and dim when won. And the proud heart of Augustine withdrew gloom.ily into its own desolate solitude, to brood over baffled hopes, and the unreality and treachery of sense, and the shivering of many a splendid dream. He cannot rest. He will have change and novelty. He will travel—leave Africa for Rome. Monica hears with distress of his intent-follows him to the sea-side, hoping to induce him to remain, or take her too. And, to avoid doing either, he must delude the love he cannot alienate. He goes on board, he says, to bid a friend farewell. The distrustful mother weeps and clings to him, but is at length prevailed upon to pass the night in a little chapel on the beach near the place when the vessel rode off anchor. When she looked in the blue dawn of day, the ship was far away upon the waters. Oh sweet, sad, weeping, eyes that looked so wistfully across that morning sea, ye shall be made glad with the shining of your "heart's desire," ere long! Rome St. Augustine left for Milan, and was joined here by his mother, who had traversed the sea alone to hover about him still. (Fairest mortal image, be it reverently whispered, of that patient Spirit of God, whose wing of pity and mercy is close after us in all our wanderings, and will never leave us nor forsake us, while yet there lingers within our hearts one unbroken or unjarred string wherefrom the breath of its rapture may evoke a tone of sympathy, or the feeblest quiver of pure desire.) And, now Monica found this blessed answer to her long years of prayer. The Manichean had become a Christian, and the lover of pleasure a lover of God. His world-sated heart found in God through Christ Jesus our Lord, the peace that passeth understanding; and the soaring inquisitive intellect satisfaction in the Christlike wisdom. which believes and loves that it may know; and the proud imperial imagination worthier room wherein to range amid visions like unto them which drew from the harp of Isaiah tones of such triumphant ecstasy, and passed with panoramic vividness and pomp, before the gifted eye of St. John the divine. Ah! blessed is it when the greatest become the godliest too! Thrice blessed would it be for this country-for all countries --if those sovereign minds that seek in their conscious prodigality of THE MOTHER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 373 endowment, to comprehend all truth, would likewise learn to be humble, and adore and bow like the lowly women at the foot of the Cross! And St. Augustine will now give up city life and public teaching; and they go away together to a country house, lent by a friend-he and the blessed mother, his brother, two of his late pupils, and some other few congenial spirits. And the sweet season of the vintage passes in happy social intercourse, and the pursuits of literature, and those "means of grace" which do fortify and brighten "the hope of glory." And, by and by, the thoughts of all begin to point southwesterly, and they yearn, as with the heart of one, for the old native shore. And they have reached Ostia in the prosecution of this purpose of establishing themselves together in Africa, when Monica suddenly sickened, and, after a short illness, died. "I closed her eyes," writes St. Augustine, "and there flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my heart." We know no writing of the kind at once so sublime and tender as the pages in which the last days of Monica are related by her son. "The day now approaching" he says, "wherein she was to depart this fe, it came to pass that she and I stood alone in a certain window, which looked into the garden of the house where we now lay at Ostia; where, removed from the din of men, we were recruiting from the fatigues of a long journey for the voyage. We were discoursing there together, alone, very sweetly; and forgetting the past in the future, we were inquiring between ourselves of what sort the eternal life of the saints was to be, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. But yet we longed with all our hearts after those heavenly streams of the fountain of life, that we night in some sort meditate upon so high a mystery. And then our discourse was brought to that point, that the very highest delights of the earthly senses, in the very purest material light, were, in respect of the sweetness of that life, not only not worthy of comparison, but not even of mention. Raising ourselves with a more fervent affection towards the Eternal, we passed by degrees through all corporeal things; even very heavens, whence sun, and moon, and stars shine upon the earth: yea, we were soaring higher yet, by inward musing and discourse, and admiring of Thy works; and we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region of never-failing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel for ever with the food of truth. As we spake, this world with all its delights became contemptible to us. My mother said, Son, for mine own part, I have no further delight in anything in this life. What I do here any longer, and to what end I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are accomplished. One thing there was for which I desired to linger for a while in this life—that Ĭ might see thee a Catholic Christian before I died. My God hath done this for me, and more; since I now see thee despising earthly happiness and become his servant; what ther. ' do I here?" the Beautiful exemplification of the inexhaustible efficaciousness and final victory of goodness! Fair, feminine, long-suffering, persistently tender and hopeful life, wherein we read again the consoling lesson once writ for us ripplingly by the sweetest singer of old, "They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy." Let it not be said of any work done in piety and wisdom, however resultless-looking, that it is done in vain! Let it not be said that any holy prayer, or any kindest caution, or any just remonstrance, or any father's counsel, or the troubled look from a mother's imploring eyes, or the long silent, significant pressure of a pure sister's hand,- -can be in vain! It is impossible that these things can be all in vain. All these are good. And good is embodied truth,—truth working through conscience and sympathy. Truth is immortal. Truth is of God. Truth is life, and falsehood is death. It is active, you say: it is the activity of putrescence. Lord Lindsay tells us that he took a dry, dead-looking bulbous root out of the hand of a mummy in one of the pyramids, which he planted afresh. And lo! it sucked again the immortal juices from the breast of mother earth, and sprang into the upper air, and sprouted vigorously, and clothed itself with exuberant greenery, and blossomed forth into a resplendent flower. Emblem this of the perrenial vitality of truth! Neither individuals nor nations may with impunity trifle with truth, or can evade eventually its destinating energy. If unseen and unheard it still is near and beside them, keeping pace with all their movements in stealthy mysterious steps. It may have been unheeded in the race for glory, and in the rush for gold; and while the syren voices of pleasure poured over the soul the spells of their enchantment; but it will assuredly reappear with "powerful trouble" in some grave and breathless crisis of being-perhaps in that terrible time when reputations and riches take wings and flee, and the fashion of this world passeth away: or its visit may be made in some gentler manner, while for repentance there yet is room, when some sudden memory of purity and tenderness is opening the heart as an olden hymn steals through the air, or the chime of church bells is heard over the twilight fields. Unholy laws may have gagged it, and the mailed hosts of successive despotisms may have trampled it into a numbness like unto that of death; but the triumphant voice of truth will one day ring full and fierce in the rallying cry of some righteous and sublime rebellion. It may have lain stifled beneath a gigantic accumulation of priestly impostures and papal corruptions, but the smouldering truth will at last blaze out in indignant reformations, glorious with the ghastly lights of a thousand immortal martyrdoms. "Truth crushed to earth will rise again, EUSTATIUS. SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED. PATMOS.-Rev. i. 9. COMMON tradition points to a small rocky island in the Egean Sea, as the place to which the apostle John was banished. It is situated on the western coast of lesser Asia, about twenty miles south of Samos, and is now known as Patino, or Palmosa. A more bleak and desolate spot cannot well be imagined. The island is a continuous rock, presenting, when approached from the sea, a succession of capes. It is SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED. 375 twelve miles in length from end to end, and about six across at its broadest part. Several excellent harbours exist on the north-west coast, but one only is used. The town of Palmosa is situated on a rocky eminence rising abruptly from the sea; and this, with a few dwellings at La Scala, or the landing-place, forms the only inhabited site on the island. In the middle of the town, and on the highest part of it stands the monastry of St. John, built by the emperor of Constantinople, Alexis Comnenus, in the eleventh century, probably after the crusaders, gathered by Peter the Hermit, had passed through his dominions. It is a massive building, flanked with towers, and looks like a fortress. About half way up the mountain, between La Scala and the town, is a natural grotto in the rock, where, say the natives, John saw his visions and wrote his Apocalypse. In and around it is a small church, with which a school is connected, where ancient Greek literature is said to be well taught. There are not more than five thousand inhabitants on the island. Maize and barley are cultivated in the few fertile spots, though the islanders depend mainly for grain on the neighbouring continent. The grapes of Palmosa are celebrated, and produce the strongest and best flavoured wines of any in the Greek islands. “OINTMENT OF SPIKENARD, VERY COSTLY."-John xii. 3. THE Greek word nardos, the synonyme of the Hebrew nard, is translated uniformly in our version of the Scriptures, "spikenard." It rightly indicates a peculiar kind of nard, so called from the many spikes that grow out of its one root, from which is extracted a perfume highly esteemed in the east. The plant itself has only been identified by botanists in very recent times. It does not grow in Palestine, but is a native of Hindostan, and found principally in the district over which the gigantic shadows of the Himalayas are cast. Considerable quantities are brought down yearly to the plains as an article of commerce, especially from the region north of Delhi. Solomon classes it in this catalogue of spices (Song of Songs, chap. iv. 14.) with the most valued aromatics known to the ancients, all of which, with one exception, must have been brought into the country by foreign traders, just as Egypt was once supplied from Gilead by Midianitish merchants," with spicery, balm, and myrrh," Gen. xxxvii. 25. By the same means nard afterwards found its way into Judea, and oven to Italy. Considering, then, the slow means of transit in those early times; the distance from which the nard was brought, from Hindostan, in all probability, or at nearest, from Persia; the insecurity of travelling; and the high profits successful merchants obtained when risks were so great, we can readily see how the essential oil of the plant, "the ointment of spikenard," came to be, as described by the evangelist, very costly." Moreover, when Mary poured the ointment upon "the head" (Mark xiv. 3.) and "feet of Jesus," Judas cried out against what he pretended to think a great waste, "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence?" a sum at that time equal to the wages earned by a labourer in Palestine after a whole year's toil, and much more than the pay of a Roman soldier during the same period. 66 Collateral evidence of its costliness is also furnished by an allusion in the writings of one of the Latin poets of the Augustine era. The jovial Horace addresses Virgil in one of his odes, and invites him to come and enjoy, in his company, the beautiful spring. He has some excellent wine, but if Virgil means to share it, he must bring with him some of this precious ointment. A little onyx of nard will draw out for him a cadus of wine, that is, about eight gallons and a half. The evangelist Mark describes the vessel containing the perfume as "an alabaster box," xiv. 3. At Alabastron, in Egypt, there was a manufactory for small pots and vessels for holding perfume, made from a stone found in the neighbouring mountains. The Greeks first gave the name of this city to the vessels themselves, afterwards to the stone out of which they were made, and at length to all vessels of perfume, no matter of what materials. The real alabastron, however, was still generally preferred. This stone was also called by the Greeks onyx, from its resemblance to the human finger nail; and as alabastra grew into common use as a term for all caskets used for perfumes, so onyx came afterwards to be employed. Hence the use of the word by Horace,"nardi parvus onyx,' 29.66 a little onyx of nard," in the illustration already given. The vessel was "She brake the box," says Mark, chap. xiv. 3. probably shaped somewhat like a Florence oil-flask, with a long and narrow neck; and the mouth being curiously and firmly sealed up, and the stone easily broken, the usual and readiest way of getting at the contents was, to break off the upper part of the neck. THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE LIBERTINES.-Acts vi. 3. Two explanations of this term, Libertines, have found support among learned men. One is derived from the name of a city, the other from the state or condition of a people. The first may thus be briefly stated. Synagogues were very numerous in Jerusalem in the days of the apostles; one Rabbi asserting that there were at least four hundred and eighty, which seems an exaggeration. The Jews who came from different provinces of the Roman empire, or even from different cities, when they were numerous enough, had each a synagogue of their own, for the use of such as resided in Jerusalem, or might visit that city during the great festivals. Thus the Jews from the provinces of Cilicia and Proconsular Asia, as well as those who came from the cities of Cyrene and Alexandria, had built houses of prayer at their own charge. Now as the Libertines are mentioned in the same connection with the Cyrenians and Alexandrians, they were probably Jews from a city called Libertus or Libertina, situated somewhere in Africa Proper, near Carthage. In proof that there was such a city in that neighbourhood, the advocates of this explanation refer to the acts of the celebrated conference with the Donatists, held at Carthage, in the year 411, where allusion is made to Victor as at that time bishop of the church of Libertina; and also to the acts of the Lateran council, held in the year 649, wherein is mentioned one "Janarius gratia Dei episcopus sancta ecclesiæ Libertinensis," "Janarius, by the grace of God, bishop of the holy church at Libertina." The second explanation re-. |