E. J. SEWELL, ESQ., ON POMPEII. 



131 



conceptioDS of the ancient Egyptians. These conceptions 

 approached the inonotlieistic idea of an omnipresent God, and 

 with them was associated a belief in a blessed immortality. 

 The worship of Isis proved the most successfnl of the pagan 

 cults in maintaining; itself against Christianity, with which it had 

 not a little in common, both in doctrine and in emblems. The 

 subject is much too large to be dealt with in this paper, but the 

 point of chief interest to us is that this Pompeian temple of 

 Isis is the only temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess which 

 has come down to us in a good state of preservation. It must 

 have been built soon after 105 B.C., more than 60 years before 

 the erection of any such temple in Eome was permitted. In 

 addition to this we have also at Herculaneum a wall-painting 

 representing a scene in the worship of Isis — the adoration of 

 the holy water. 



There are, of course, other temples in the town, but these 

 four : the temple of Apollo, the temple of Jupiter, the temple 

 of Vespasian, and the temple of Isis, standing side by side, give 

 us, as it were, a visual abstract of the various developments 

 of the religious side of human nature with which Christianity 

 in its origin had to contend. AVe may find a modern analogy 

 in China, where three or four very different forms of religion, 

 each fitting itself to one side of human nature, exist side 

 by side, so that a man may choose that form of religion that 

 suits his particular idiosyncrasy. In such a state of affairs, 

 Christianity, with its claim to absolute truth and demand 

 for acceptance by the whole world, seems to be either an 

 embodiment of mere superstitious feeling or to make ridiculous 

 claims which can never be substantiated. 



For all that, Christianity completely conquered its powerful 

 rivals in the Eoman Empire, and no Christian believer can 

 doubt that it will repeat its victory in China and elsewhere all 

 over the world. 



We turn now to another side of Eoman life in the first 

 century — its amusements, and again in this department of our 

 subject there is only time to mention the principal kinds of such 

 amusement, the theatres and the gladiatorial displays in the 

 amphitheatre. 



There were in Pompeii two theatres, of which the larger was 

 calculated to hold 5,000 people. It was excavated in the side 

 of a hill and was a building of considerable magnificence. It 

 was, in great part, cased with marble and furnished with marble 

 seats. 



It is a noticeable fact that the first regular plav represented 



K 2 



