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E. J. SEWELL, ESQ., OX POMPEII. 



dignity of Emperor was from A.D. 68 to 79, its dedication to him 

 must have been later tlian a.d. 68. The religious ideal of which 

 it supplies a picture was the latest development of thought in 

 the Koman world. Men were weary of the barren disputes of 

 the different philosophic sects ; they saw little reason to prefer 

 one system of words over another. The basis of fact and 

 certainty which the human soul so anxiously seeks for when 

 really and deeply stirred by religious feeling, seemed equally 

 absent from all the systems. 



On the other hand, the Eoman Emperor stood out as the 

 incarnation of Power. It was no doubt this, the possession of 

 despotic uncontrolled power stretching its field of exercise to 

 the limits of civilization, as then known, which drove Emperor 

 after Emperor mad. To the ordinary dwellers in Provincial 

 Italy, and still more to those in the more distant provinces, to 

 whom the Emperor was not a man familiarly known but a name 

 of unbounded power which made itself felt and known at every 

 turn, it must have seemed that this Emperor was the only real 

 and certain Euler of the World, and therefore the only worthy 

 object of worship. 



But to the new-born Christian Church, this w^as a religion 

 with which there could not be the least compromise. Her 

 pagan persecutors soon discovered this, and the fact furnished 

 them with one of their two tests whether men suspected of 

 belonging to the Ciiristian body did or did not really do so. 

 Would they offer incense to the Emperor and take part in a 

 sacrifice to him as to a deity ? and, in the second place, would 

 they curse Christ ? 



These were the simple tests applied, and they were, of course, 

 conclusive. Their application compelled either a recantation 

 of belief in Christ, or an open and undisguised confession of 

 allegiance to our Lord and to Him only. 



I must not dwell further on this point, but these considera- 

 tions indicate the important part played in the first century 

 A.D. by the system of religious thought of which this temple 

 of Vespasian gives us a concrete example. 



The last of the four chief temples, the temple of Isis, is some 

 distance away from the Eorum, but it exemplifies a feature of 

 Eoman life, the importance of which is receiving increasing 

 recognition. The worship of this Egyptian goddess w^as closely 

 associated with " Mysteries," and it is now recognized that 

 these " Mvsteries " were the vehicle throuoh which all that was 

 spiritual in the religions of the ancient world found expression. 

 The myth of Isis and Osiris embodied the loftiest and purest 



