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



135 



which they fostered, the rehgion of Love has put an end to them 

 for ever. Vicisti Galilcee ! 



My subject is so full of interest that I have left myself but 

 little time to illustrate [by means of lantern slides] one great 

 and very important part of it, viz., the character and examples 

 of ancient art which we find in Pompeii, in the wall-paintings 

 and mosaics, the statuary, and particularly in the bronzes which 

 have been preserved to us. 



And now my time is at an end but not, emphatically not, 

 my material. Whole departments of facts illustrating the life 

 of Pompeii have been left absolutely untouched and those 

 dealt with have only been sketched. But perhaps enough has 

 been done to attain the purpose of this paper, viz., to outline 

 the background of a picture of that state of things in which 

 Christianity won its earliest triumph. The conditions of the 

 modern world are in some respects changed, but in others there 

 is a remarkable likeness. It is the boast of Christianity that 

 it is a religion for all the world, not only for all the different 

 races of mankind, that it meets the deepest needs of every class 

 and description of men and women in any one race and in 

 every place. Its message is to that human nature which is 

 fundamentally the same everywhere and at every time under 

 the most different outward conditions ; and this being so, we need 

 not have the least doubt that the triumphs of the first century 

 in the ancient world will be repeated in the twentieth and all 

 succeedino- centuries and among^ all the diversified nations of 

 the globe. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman : I am sure that we have listened with interest to 

 Mr. Sewell's valuable paper. Though sharing the general interest 

 which these important discoveries have excited, I cannot say that I 

 am able to throw much light upon the subject, as my specialty, 

 though closely akin, deals with a very different part of the world. 

 A few comparisons, from an Assyrian point of view, may, neverthe- 

 less, not be altogether unwelcome. 



The great advantage which students of the daily life of the 

 Romans have reaped from the discoveries at Pompeii lies in the fact 

 that the city had a sudden overwhelming, which, though disastrous 

 for its inhabitants, has been of inestimable value to the modern 



