therefore nearly a third larger than the Vatican Palace, and eighteen or twenty churches, of the size of St. Peter's, might have stood side by side, within its outer walls. There were

two or three stories of subterranean apartments, surmounted by two stories above ground, which, as appears from the stupendous arches that still remain, were of immense height. At each end were two temples, respectively devoted to Apollo, to Esculapius, to Hercules, and to Bacchus, as the guardian deities of a place sacred to the acquisition of knowledge, the promotion of health, the practice of athletic sports and exercises, and the indulgence of luxurious festivity. Around the large circular vestibule were four halls, for cold, tepid, warm, and steam baths, while in the centre was an immense square, for exercise, when the weather without was unpleasant. Next to this was a great hall, in which were sixteen hundred mar ble seats, for the use of the bathers, while, at each end of it, were public libraries. On both sides of the building was a court, surrounded with porticos, with an Odeum, or hall, for music, and in the centre a vast basin for swimming. This building was surrounded with walks shaded by rows of trees, and in front was an open gymnasium, for exercise in pleasant weather. The whole was enclosed by a vast portico, opening into spacious halls, where the poets declaimed, and the philosophers delivered their lectures. Within and without were pillars, stucco-work, and the choicest paintings and statues. The flues, and the reservoirs for water, still remain. An immense aqueduct supplied these baths, and the water is supposed to have been partially heated, by being exposed to the sun in a shallow reservoir, of vast size, from whence it was drawn off into two parallel rows of chambers below, numbering fifty-six in all, half of which were ranged directly above the other half, while all of them were connected together by means of pipes. Beneath these chambers were large furnaces, with flues which passed through the walls, enclosing the water in such a way as to heat it with the least possible expense of fuel. As these rooms were each about fifty feet long, thirty feet high, and twenty-eight broad, all of them would contain near two million three hundred thousand cubic feet of heated water; which, allowing eight cubic feet to an individual, would accommodate more than two hundred and eighty-five thousand persons at once.

These baths were intended for the use of the less wealthy of the citizens and the common people, as the rich had pri

vate establishments of their own. The price of admission, at first, was less than a farthing, or about one fourth of a cent. Agrippa bequeathed his gardens and baths to the Roman people, together with estates for their support, that thus the public might enjoy them gratuitously. After this, in some of the baths, and probably in all those built by the emperors, even the unguents with which the bathers were anointed, were furnished to them free of expense. I have neither time nor inclination to describe the numerous kinds of oil, and of rich perfumes and unguents, used by the bathers, which were obtained from myrrh and lavender, from the rose, the lily, and a variety of other plants, nor the curious instruments employed in cleansing the body, and supplying the means of luxurious indulgence. Suffice it to say, that bathing became a kind of effeminate art, and by some was even used as a means of reducing the system, after an unnatural surfeit, that thus they might the sooner be prepared for the beastly pleasure of again gorging themselves, to supply the demands of an artificial appetite.

At first, the common time for bathing was from two o'clock in the afternoon until dark; but, when the practice became universal, this portion of the day was not sufficient, and the time was gradually increased, until Alexander Severus not only permitted the baths to be opened before daybreak, but also furnished the lamps with oil, for the convenience of the people. The passion for bathing continued until after Constantine removed the seat of empire to the east, — when the want of the patronage of the emperors, the ruin of the aqueducts by the barbarian invaders, the greater abundance and more common use of linen, and the immorality and disorders connected with the baths, — all contributed to hasten their destruction.

I have been thus particular in this description, from the fact, that by far the strongest and most lasting impressions of the vastness, I might almost say the immensity of the architecture of the ancient Romans, were made upon my mind by visiting the ruins of the baths of Caracalla. Subsequent study and reflection have also led to the deep and permanent conviction, that the immense wealth expended in placing the various means of luxurious indulgence, connected with the public baths, within the reach of all classes of the people, not only exerted a powerful influence, in impairing the energies of both body and mind, by an excessive devotion

to the pleasures of sense, but also in producing that national effeminacy, that corruption of morals, and that universal prevalence, of both public and private debauchery and vice, which, by their united effects, exerted a far more deadly energy, than any foreign enemy could have done in debasing the national character, and reducing the once proud and godlike Romans, to a state of slavish subjection, and mean and servile dependence, on the wild and savage Barbarians of the north. Such is the wretched and degraded state of man, when he becomes a slave of pleasure, and the love of sensual delight triumphs over the nobler attributes of his nature, and tramples them in the dust.

One of the most singular and striking facts in the religious history of mankind, is the strong tendency which has ever existed, to forsake pure and spiritual modes of worship and of intercourse with Heaven, and substitute in their place some one of the thousand varied forms of idolatry. Thus we find that Terah, the father of Abraham, and his family worshipped other gods than Jehovah, though removed but a few generations in descent from Noah, and existing while the tradition of that awful deluge with which the only true God had desolated the earth as a punishment for the sins of mankind was still fresh in their minds, and its sad and melancholy ruins were, in every direction, thickly scattered around them. If we turn to the Israelites in the wilderness, we learn with astonishment, that so soon after the striking exhibitions of the power of the Most High, in sending many and great plagues upon Egypt, in dividing the Red Sea before them, in feeding them with manna from heaven, and even while the leader and law-giver of the nation, who had parted from them amid the terrific thunders and lightnings of Sinai, was holding communion with heaven on the top of that mount, where the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire, in the eyes of the children of Israel," even then, they parted with their choicest ornaments of gold, and Aaron, the future priest of Jehovah, made of them a senseless calf, to which they bowed down and worshipped.

Solomon, also, the wisest and most powerful prince of antiquity, though by the national law idolatry was punishable with death, and the Almighty seems to have adopted every possible precaution to restrain his chosen people from its indulgence; and though this monarch had been the honored instrument of heaven, in erecting a splendid temple for

the worship of the Most High, where, even in the Holy of Holies, the place of his peculiar presence, there was no visible form or image, to degrade, by attempting to body forth to the senses the matchless glóries of that Being whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, and whom no man hath seen or can see and live,—even Solomon, was led, by the influence of his heathen wives, to permit, in Judea, the practice of idolatry, and to consecrate to the obscene and cruel rites of the pagan deities, a portion of one of the hills which overlooked Jerusalem; a spot almost fronting the splendid temple which he himself had built to the one Almighty God of the universe, thus bringing down upon the nation the deadly and desolating judgments of heaven. And yet, strange as it may seem, this same people, who at some periods of their history seemed wholly given up to idolatry; who had altars of pagan worship upon every hill-top and in every grove, and who treated with contempt all those national laws, and solemn warnings and threatenings, of the Most High, by which He strove to bind them to his exclusive service, this people it is, whom, since the Babylonian captivity, a period of more than two thousand years, though most of this time scattered and trampled underfoot, a byword and a reproach to all the nations of the earth, with no temple, with no bond of national union, with no public sacrifices, and with but few of the rites of their ancient religion, yet, as a standing continued miracle, no influence of interest or bloody persecution has ever availed to lead again to the practice of idolatry.

In the case of a nation like the Israelites, where there was so much to turn them away from the worship of the only true God, and whose religious system embraced so many types, sacrifices, and offerings, all of which centered in a future and expected Deliverer, and were to come to an end when he should appear on earth, in such a case, it was well, for the time, that they should have a magnificent temple, an object of national pride; a splendid and showy ritual; a numerous priesthood, with their gorgeous robes of office; religious festivals, when all the nation should assemble, and, forming an immense procession, with the sound of a thousand various instruments of music, and chanting with united voices those matchless odes, so rich in all the melody of Hebrew verse, and so full of the history of the past, and of promises of the far coming future, should ascend the

hill of God, and there present to Him their offerings of thanksgiving and praise.

But, by the coming of Christ on earth, this system of things was entirely changed. He foretold the speedy destruction of the temple, and, by offering himself upon the Cross, as the great and final Sacrifice for the sins of mankind, he left it no longer either necessary or proper, to continue the former rites and ceremonies of the Jewish faith. As if to rebuke, and show his strong disapprobation, of the worldly ambition, and the pomp and show of the priesthood, he not only chose the poor and despised fishermen of Galilee as his bosom friends and companions, and the founders of his church on earth, but when he saw even them striving, as to who should be greatest, he forbade their using the long and showy robes of the Scribes and Pharisees, and courting, in places of public resort, the breath of popular applause; while at the same time he solemnly charged them, that they should not themselves be called Rabbi, or master, because one was their Master, even Christ, and all they were brethren; nor should they give to any man the honorary religious title of father, for one was their Father in Heaven. If such be not the precise form intended by Christ, for the rank and standing of the ministers of his church, as being all on a perfect equality, yet the directions, thus explicitly given, seem directly opposed to all that pomp and show, and all such gradations of office in the church, as, while they confer on the individual promoted no increased facilities for doing good, at the same time excite within his breast those aspirings of unholy ambition, and that love of power, which are so apt to influence the best of men, and which, too, have ever proved the foulest blot upon the fair fame of Christianity, and the bitterest curse which she has ever been called to endure.

A great and leading reason why men have used images and other objects of idolatrous worship, to the neglect or the entire exclusion of the claims of the Most High, is the fact, that his law so pointedly forbids, condemns, and threatens their favorite practices, that they cannot rest satisfied until they have brought themselves to the belief, that some more indulgent being than Jehovah is their rightful deity. Another general reason for the worship of images, as well as for pomp and show in religion, is the fact that we have no power of perceiving spirits, as distinct from matter, and nothing in human experience proves to us their separate existence.