"Few temples were ever adapted for the purposes of Christian worship ; fewest of all in the capital of the Chris tian world. 'Of the Christian hierarchy,' says Gibbon, the bishops of Rome were commonly the most prudent and the least fanatic ; nor can any positive charge be opposed to the meritorious net of saving and converting the majestic structure of the Pantheon.' hi casting the account of the merits and demerits of the Christian hierarchy, such a pon tiff as Gregory the Great would have been ill inclined to accept the encomium. In the gergo of Gibbon, is piety, and 'prudence' unbelief. The meritorious act,' thankful as we may be for the result, was a single item, by no means influencing the general balance of praise or dis praise; it was the solitary performance of Boniface IV.; it was an act from which no consequences resulted. With the exception of the Pantheon, we fail to detect any real example in Rome, of a temple which can be said to owe its preserva tion, in the proper sense of the term, to the Christian clergy. They had no thought of the kind—they took no pleasure in such antiquities. They sought no credit for such care. Antiquaries, with eager zeal, have collected about ten examples in which this preservation is asserted. Even in the cases which are least dubious, no further merit can be claimed for the hierarchy than the accidental preservation of a portico, a cella, or a wall, an encumbrance which it was troublesome to remove—a fragment which saved some expense, built up, concealed, marred, or deformed by the new erection to which it was unwillingly conjoined.
" It could not be otherwise. In the early Christians, any participation in our modern worship of heathen art, would have been false and unnatural. All the opinions, all the habits, all the feelings, all the conscience, of the early Chris tians strove against the preservation of the memorials of heathenism. Neither beauty nor convenience, if they had possessed the latter requisite, would, save in some few special cases, like that of the Pantheon, plead for the preservation of the relics of classical antiquity. They considered the idols as accursed. No object which had in anywise been connected with the worship of idols, or could be supposed to have been employed in their service, was to be used without exorcism. Thus, in the ritual of the church of Durham, there is a form of prayer for hallowing the vase found in the Roman encampment, which could not be employed for any Christian use until subjected to such purification. Nor was this belief confined to the rude Northumbrian peasant, or to a barbarous age. Let us place ourselves before the portal of St. Peter's, fresh from the workmen's hands. Four months have been employed in removing the huge obelisk of Sesostris from the ruins of Nero's Circus to the front of the great Basilica. Eight hundred workmen, toiling at creaking
winch and groaning capstan, heave up the mass; whilst the breathless crowd watch the slow rising of the gigantic beam. It stops; when the one cry, 'aqua alle which subjects the individual who suggests the happy expedient, to the pain of death, enables the maestro to complete his task ; amidst the thunder of the cannon, the guglia' stands firm and erect upon its basement. But is the work complete ? No : the trophy of the victory of Christianity over heathenism cannot yet be received as such, until all connection with its former slavery to the fiend has been destroyed. In solemn proces sion, the supreme pontiff exorcises the magnificent work, so long dedicated to the foul superstition of Misraim,and devotes it to the honour of the Cross, performing the rites which were deemed to expel the evil spirit. Those who may not share in the belief which dictated these ceremonies, must, nevertheless, respect the sentiments contained in the simple majestic language, commemorating the consecration of the spoils of heathenism to the service of the Cross. &ea Crux Doinini—Christus vineit—Christus regnat—Christus imperat—Christus ab omni male plebem suam defendat Vicit Leo de tribu Juda.' "Thus did Pope Sixtus record his triumph. Yet there was a greater triumph felt by the zeal which taught the early Christians to glory in casting down the altars and the high places devoted to sin ; deeming—we will not presume to judge whether rightly or wrongly—that such a testimony to the truth was imperatively enjoined upon them. By their deeds they contemned the temporizing policy of the emperors. They sought the actual and visible victory of literally erect ing the temple of the Lord upon the ruins of the habitation of the demon. The statues were broken, to be buried in the foundations ; hence few sculptures have ever been found at Rome, which did not, like the Venus of the Medici, show by their defacement and fractures, the aversion of which they had been the objects. Amongst the great congregation of the faithful, the distaste, the horrors excited by paganism —its structures, monuments, glories, charms—were uncon querable and paramount. Idols might have been removed, and the building consecrated by the rites, which, according to the primitive belief, would drive away the demon ; yet no lustration could entirely heal the leprosy of the walls. The language of the Virgin Martyr was echoed in every heart: Your gods, your temples, brothel-houses rather; Or wicked actions of the worst of men, Pursued and practised. Your religious rites I Oh I call them rather juggling mysteries, The baits and nets of hell Your Venus whom you worship, was a harlot— Flora, the foundrcss of the public stews, And has for that her sacrifice.