Raeburn's death; but we feel that some sympathy is due to the agony of a father's heart when he finds that his son has lost his faith in God, and all that that faith implies, even in its rudest and most untaught form. Nor can we conclude without expressing a regret that a subject so surrounded with difficulties, and requiring such extremely careful treatment as that of Universalism, should have been discussed with a superficiality which was unavoidable in a work like this. So much in candour we feel bound to say, and were we arguing with Charles Osmond himself, we might have other objections to press. But we feel that we owe Edna Lyall a great debt, if on no other account at least on this, that she has introduced us to a subject, the interest of which is only equalled by its importance. There are many minds, young, ardent, and generous, on whom these stories have had an excellent effect. This we have upon undoubted authority; and there may be others of us who are no longer young who may have need to learn a lesson of toleration-of such toleration, we mean, as is consistent with the firm and uncompromising maintenance of the truth.

If there are any who are more interested in the political than in the religious aspect of the question, and would wish to obtain some insight into the social theories which have become so strangely allied with atheism, we can recommend them to Mr. Rae's work, which contains at once the most interesting accounts of the principal Socialistic movements, and a very able discussion of their tenets. The book is written in depreciation of Socialistic theories, but with warm and genuine sympathy with the aspirations of the working classes, of whose future the author takes a hopeful and encouraging view.

ART. VII.-MONUMENTAL EVIDENCES OF

CHRISTIANITY.

1. Revue des Questions Historiques. (Paris, 1883.) 2. Journal of Hellenic Studies.

1882-83.)

Vols. iii., iv. (London,

3. Le Liber Pontificalis. Par M. l'ABBÉ L. DUCHESNE. (Paris: Première Fascicule, Juillet 1884; Deuxième Fascicule, Juin 1885.)

4. La Roma Sotterranea Cristiana.

Rossi. (Roma, 1864-77.)

5. Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana.

Dal CAV. G. B. DE

Serie i., ii. e iii.

Dal Cav. G. B. DE ROSSI. (Roma, 1863 al 1881.) 6. Discoveries at Ephesus. By J. T. WOOD, F.S.A., &c. &c. (London, 1877.)

7. Inscriptiones Britannia Christiana. Ed. EMILIUS HÜBNER. (London, 1876.)

8. Manuel d'Epigraphie Chrétienne d'après des Marbres de la Gaule. Par EDMOND LE BLANT. (Paris, 1869.) 9. Roma Sotterranea; or, An Account of the Roman Catacombs, &c. By the Rev. J. SPENCER NORTHCOTE, D.D., &c., and the Rev. W. R. BROWNLOW, M.A., &c. (London, 1879.)

10. Madras Fournal of Literature and Science. Vol. xiii. (Madras, 1884.)

II. Lingerings of Light in a Dark Land. By the Rev. T. WHITEHOUSE, M.A., &c. (London, 1873.)

12. Inscriptiones Hispania Latina, &c. Ed. ÆMILIUS HÜBNER. (Berolini, MDCCCLXIX.)

13. Traces of the Ancient Kingdom of Damnonia, outside Cornwall, in Remains of the Celtic Hagiology. By THOMAS KERSLAKE. Reprinted from the Journal of the Brit. Archæol. Association, vol. xxxiii.

THE treasures of the ancient heathen past which have enriched recent knowledge from such sites as Hissarlik, Mycenæ, Olympia, Cyprus, Tarquinii, and half a score more, are rivalled by the large wealth of Christian monuments recently accumulated. The spade is the great teacher concerning all that once was. It reveals facts which have outlasted not merely the hands which brought them to pass, but often the entire human society of whose surroundings the monuments formed

a part. In Asia,' says Eusebius,' quoting Polycrates, 'great elements repose,' and he goes on to state what was then known concerning the last earthly resting-places of S. John and others who had held converse with the Lord.

Recent research at Ephesus, although it has not revealed any actual confirmation of these statements, has been even more serviceable in retrieving, as we shall further show, a valuable link which brings the memory of the last living Apostle into closer relation with the sequel of Church history, and that by the aid of secular monuments. We follow, in retracing the lines of this whole area of discovery, the footsteps of the Faith itself, from its cradle in Palestine to Ephesus and Asia, where the external type of the organization seems to have been definitely fixed, thence to Rome and the West, with just a glimpse in conclusion at the farther East.

Among the monumental relics of Palestine connected with Christian story may be mentioned Jacob's Well, at Nablous (Samaria), a site long traditionally known, but the evidence of which had been obscured. It has by the zeal of some private travellers been now reopened, the rubbish cleared away, and the dimensions registered. A stone ledge surrounded it, with grooves, caused by the ropes of ascending vessels, in the edge of the orifice. It is difficult to believe with Mr. Barclay that he 'sat on that ledge on which doubtless the Saviour rested.' The attrition and casualties of nigh two thousand years must probably have worn out several stone settings since the memorable interview of S. John iv. He left the well-mouth, with its quadrangular stone slab 'of the hard white limestone of the country,' 3 feet 9 inches by 2 feet 7 inches, and 1 foot 6 inches thick, and its circular opening of 1 foot 5 inches diameter, completely denuded of rubbish and restored to its identity. Let us hope it may so remain (Palestine Exploration, Quarterly Statement, July 1881, p. 212 foll.2)

A more profoundly interesting problem is presented in the actual site of Calvary, or Golgotha, which Captain Conder suggests may be identified in a hillock above Jeremiah's Grotto, having an ancient Jewish sepulchre adjacent on its western side, which he cautiously proposes as possibly the actual Holy Sepulchre. It seems that the hillock has the

1 Euseb., H. E., iii. 31, § 125, 22 n.

2 Captain Conder remarks that the 'stone dressing somewhat resembles crusading work,' and the 'vault' referred to in the text appears to be a part of the ancient cruciform basilica, which was so built [by the Crusaders] as to have the well in the centre of the cross' (ib. p. 195).

local tradition of being an old place of execution. He says:

'Another point concerning this hillock has been noticed by recent visitors, who have seen in its outline a resemblance to a skull. The rounded summit and the two hollow cave entrances beneath do, indeed, give some resemblance to a skull, as may be seen in a photograph (engraved as an illustration, p. 202) taken from this point of view by Lieutenant Mantell, which I enclose. It is the skull of an animal rather than of a human being, and I should not like to base an argument on so slight a resemblance. It is, however, of interest to note the fact, as many persons consider that Golgotha was a name derived from the form of the ground rather than from the use of the site as a place of burial or of execution.'

Of the tomb he says that it is 'indisputably Jewish,'' of the later period,' 'dating about the time of Christ,' and that no other such 'has ever been found before so close to the ramparts of the modern city on the north.' 1

The stairs' of the Castle of Antonia, on which S. Paul 'stood' (Acts xxi. 40), are still standing. Any traveller may mount them and stand where the great Apostle stood, as Canon Tristram assures the present writer he has often done. They are one of the pulpits of the world, eloquent still of the truth and of the constancy of the sufferings which bore witness to it.

The Sacred Places of Jerusalem and Palestine' is the subject of a notice in the Bullettino, 1865, No. 11, pp. 81 foll. Therein is mentioned a previously unknown copy of the Bordeaux Pilgrim's Itinerary, who reached Jerusalem in 333 A.D., when the basilica erected by Constantine was not yet dedicated nor completed. It was found in Paris and printed in the Revue Archéologique for August 1865; but two other copies were previously known. The period from Constantine to the first inroads of the Persians in 614 A.D. is not rich in true

1

Subsequent research has qualified this statement. Captain Conder, in a private letter to the present writer, says, under date of November 1885, Quite lately some more tombs have been found near the one which I pointed out in 1881. They appear to be Christian tombs, and it is not impossible that the tomb I found-then the only one knownmay also be Christian. The whole question is fully discussed in the Jerusalem volume of the memoirs which was published last year (1884). I am perfectly satisfied that we have the real site of Calvary, but I should not like to say that I feel equally certain about the tomb, and I have never done more than suggest the possibility of the latter identification.' See also the last few pages of vol. i. of Captain Conder's Tent Work in Palestine, Colonel Warren's summary of The Temple and the Tombs, and a chapter_entitled 'The Recovery of Jerusalem' in the Palestine Exploration Fund Record.

topographists. The learned editor of the same Revue has, however, published another itinerary, next in order of time and only second in importance to that of the Bordeaux Pilgrim. Then comes one ascribed to Antoninus, martyr of Placenza, also previous to the Persian invasion. We have also incidental notices of sacred sites and buildings in Palestine by the historians of the intervening ages, and notably the letter of S. Jerome when on his journey to Jerusalem. The comparison of these with the results of recent exploration would be an interesting study, but would wholly outrun our available space.

But the negative results of Palestine exploration as regards the New Testament are the more grandly conclusive, in proportion as they rest on a totality of research impossible to exhibit here in detail. Whether epigraphic, or merely monumental, or generally topographical, those results have never in a single instance been found at variance with the Evangelistic record. Many sites and scenes of recorded events may always perhaps, like those of Capernaum and Cana, those of the feeding of the multitudes and of the Sermon on the Mount, remain open to doubt, and the competing claims of divers places be impossible to adjust; but that narratives so full of minute local traits and incidental allusions to facts of distance and lines of route as those of the Gospels and the Acts should, after the microscopic research which has now for years been devoted to the survey, never in a single instance be found to be out of harmony with its results would, on any subject not beset by the prejudices of infidelity, be deemed conclusive in favour of their authenticity. The whole area of Palestine has, it may almost be said, been passed through the sieve of the most laborious exploration, even as the text of the documents through that of the most sensitive criticism, with the result, one may boldly say, of no single flaw being detected in their perfect correspondence. The narrative clings to the soil as closely as its own flora. The incidents are set in their native rocks and valleys, and it would be easier to sluice the Mediterranean on the west and the Red Sea on the south into the Ghôr of the Jordan-as indeed has been proposed—and efface the entire aspect of the country than to dislodge them from it.

The energetic perseverance of Mr. J. T. Wood at Ephesus has resulted in unearthing much that confirms but nothing that initiates. There now stands the sumptuous 'Third Temple,' restored to architectural perfection in his careful elevations and plans, while foundations of the other two-as