Let this suffice for an introduction. I could continue it much further, but for the fear that some of your readers may be beforehand with me in my intended slumbers.

It was after musing longer than has been my wont of late on christian antiquity, and what has been pleasantly called the pure and primitive church, that the vision spread itself before me, which I am going to recount. I found myself all at once in the midst of a splendid city, in which nothing of oriental magnificence seemed wanting; and was not long in making the discovery, that it could be no other than the renowned Antioch, once the queen of the east. One of its broad squares was before my eyes; and in the porticos that extended along its sides, a great number of grave looking men, some seated at their ease, and some walking slowly under the noble arcades, were engaged in meditation, or in conversing with one another. Nor was I left in suspense as to the period to which I had been so suddenly transported back; for the statues of Antoninus Pius erected here and there, which seemed hardly less honoured by the people, than that of their own tutelar Apollo, told me that it was the middle of the second century. Yes, just about a hundred years had elapsed, since the apostle Paul, with his companion Barnabas, preached christianity in that very city, and perhaps on that very spot.

The first group that I passed were very loud in their discussions, but talked in so strange and mixed a manner, that whether they were heathen or christian I found it impossible to decide. A small company, further on, was occupied in learning the doctrines of

the gospel, by the help of diagrams, and a geographical apparatus. My attention was soon fixed, however, on a man of venerable appearance, with an honest and rather benevolent countenance, and dressed in the garb of a philosopher. It was JUSTIN MARTYR, whom, as I knew he had been something of a traveller, in the lesser Asia at least, I was not surprised to see at the Syrian capital. Justin was always a favourite of mine; not that he wrote much good sense, (all that is reasonable forbid I should charge him with that!) but because he is the first authenticated christian author who stands out from that dark interval between the years 70 and 150 of our era; not because he was a martyr for his opinions, though that in some circumstances may be highly praiseworthy, but because he was disposed to judge kindly of those, whose opinions differed from his own. This praise for his charity he indeed shares with many of the Greek fathers, while those of the Latin church have been generally a sour, rigorous, intolerant race, from Tertullian, the first of them, downward.

By his side stood a man of "lean and hungry look," who proved to be Tatian, the Assyrian, his pupil. Justin said that he had not long since left Ephesus, where he had been contending against Trypho, the Jew, and some of his friends, that the Messiah had indeed come. This gave me occasion to say, that I was acquainted with his account of that memorable conference, and valued it highly; but though I had no objection to make to most of his positions, whether in history, chronology, etymology, or interpretation; though many of his types might be very perfect, if somewhat odd, and though I was willing to take his

favourite sybil Hystaspes for all she was worth, yet I would fain have him explain to me how there can be any other God than God. With more good nature than distinctness, he began to give me his views concerning the person of the Saviour. They were borrowed from some mystical expressions of the Platonic philosophy; a sect to which he had passed through the successive stages of Stoic, Peripatetic, and Pythagorean, and which he had left, or meant to leave, for the Gospel. He assured me, that the idea of two divinities, one generated by the other, was one of the simplest things in the world; for do not all writers style Jupiter the father of Gods and men, and is not Mercury held to be the wisdom of God announcing his will? He went on to show from the writings of the Old Testament, that God in the beginning, before all creatures, produced from himself a rational power, which is called sometimes the Son, sometimes Wisdom, sometimes an Angel, sometimes God, sometimes Lord and Logos; that this glorious being was the medium of divine communications to the patriarchs, and the ancient world, and subordinate to God, who was the cause of his existence, and of his being powerful, and Lord and God. Now this second deity is no other, said he, than Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin. "But is this," I inquired, "the universal opinion among you?" "It is not," he replied. "There are they, to whom it appears very paradoxical, especially among the Jews; and some even among ourselves consider Jesus to have been a man. I could not agree with them,” he added, "were they ever so numerous; and yet be the nature of Christ what it may, we all acknowledge he is Christ still."

"But I have heard you say nothing, as yet," rejoined I, "of the Holy Spirit. What explanation give you of that?” Justin looked at me with a doubtful air, as if he did not know exactly what I meant, but presently exclaimed; "O yes, we honour the prophetic spirit in the third place after the Logos,-the Logos in the second, and the spirit that moved over the water in the third." This was said with some little confusion, which was heightened by my demanding of him, whether he had never written a treatise concerning "the holy and consubstantial trinity." He protested that he had not written a word about the matter, that he knew nothing about it, and had never heard those strange words before in his life. Ah, honest Justin! thought I, you little dream of the ages of theological imposition that are coming fast after you. The world is presently to have every kind of absurdity carried about under the names of apostles and apostolic men; and distant times will hold in such small repute all ecclesiastical ingenuousness, that some will even suspect your worthy self of having forged the oracular Sybil whom you quote. And O Antioch! how will your own Ignatius-as if it was not enough to be eaten up of wild beasts in a Roman amphitheatre-be made to talk about "bishops, priests, and deacons," and little else, from generation to generation.

While I was indulging in these apostrophes, we were accosted by a number of men, whose Jewish extraction was sufficiently legible in their peculiar features, the swarthy tint of the skin, and the dark lustre of the eye. They were Nazarenes, or Jewish Christians, who combined the forms of their ancient law with their new faith, and resided at Berea, which lay

at no great distance on the east of Antioch. They had just come from that city, where they had an inconsiderable church, on a visit to the capital, and without ceremony entered into our conversation. "Here," cried the oldest of them, "were the believers in Jesus first called Christians; and since that day the name of Nazarenes, which they all once wore, has been growing a despised name. The Gentiles have come in, and forgotten all that they owe to the covenant of Moses. They affect to set at nought the law of our fathers, though Christ always observed it, and never declared it to have lost its obligation. They have deified the son of Joseph and Mary, whom we honour, but cannot worship; and we are denounced because we hold to those ordinances, which were given by the ministration of angels." Justin frankly acknowledged that there were a great many of his brethren, who were so hostile to them as to exclude them from the common offices of social life, and from the hope of salvation; but for his own part he did not agree with such, and was willing to think kindly of his Judaising brethren, provided they were content to observe by themselves the Mosaic ceremonies, without pretending to impose them on others.

I know not how long this conversation would have lasted; but something suddenly startled these poor Bereans; their countenances assumed a strong expression of abhorrence, and gathering their full, dark drapery about them, they hurried away. On turning round, I perceived the cause of this quick expression and movement, in a large number of personages of a very sagacious, important look, who were now on the point of joining us. A smile of derision passed from one to the