pression. "When Herod had sought for him, and found him not, he examined the keepers, and commanded that they should be put to death." He would not seem to give the least credence to the miracle, whether in his heart he believed it or not; and they who had been the ready, and it may be willing executioners of his cruel edicts, fall themselves under his wrath, and meet the doom which they were preparing to inflict. But Herod himself is dealt with by a higher than mortal sovereign, and soon perishes in a manner far more miserable. "Upon a set day, arrayed in royal apparel, he sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory; and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. But the word of God grew and multiplied." Such was the issue of persecution of Jesus' Church. Behold Peter walking at liberty! See the scaffold stained by the blood of those who should have led him thither! And the tyrant himself, arrested in his career of persecution, filled with intolerable anguish, and made the food of the worm while life yet lingers in his tortured body! "So must all thine enemies perish, O Lord. But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."

THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM.

ACTS XV. 5, 6.

"But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter."

For the space of some five or six years after the wonderful deliverance of the Apostle Peter from the dungeon of Herod, we find no mention of him in the Book of the Acts. After his release from the prison, he probably remained for a time in concealment, until the tyrant, being removed from earth by the fearful judgment of the Almighty, the storm of persecution ceased. Tradition, often building on the sand, has attempted to fill this interval by a visit of the Apostle to Rome, and occupies him there with the foundation of the Roman Church, and the erection of that Pontifical see that was to rule the Christian world with a rod of iron. That Peter might at some time have visited the imperial city, and perhaps suffered martyrdom there, is a point which, however doubtful, and unsatisfactorily proved, I have no particular anxiety to deny. The rejector of the usurpations of the Popedom may very cheer

fully admit the fact, if fact it be. It really makes very little difference in the scale of controversy. Peter might be conceded to have been there a hundred times, and still the advocate of Papal supremacy is not one whit nearer the establishment of his case. But while I am not solicitous to deny that Peter might have at some time visited that city, and might have died there, there is no evidence whatever for transporting him to Rome at this particular period. Nay, there is much evidence to the contrary, especially the important fact, that St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, makes not the least reference to his brother Apostle, as the founder of their Church, or as in any degree connected with it. Total silence on such a point is hardly to be explained, as the Epistle was written some time after the Apostle's pretended visit, if there were any reality in the claim. Neither does it accord with St. Paul's statement in the Epistle to the Galatians, that all the Apostles plainly perceived that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto him, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter. For," he adds, "he that wrought effectually in Peter to the Apostleship of the Circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles." This could scarcely have been their conclusion, if the Apostle Peter had already laid the foundation of the Christian Church in the great metropolis of

the Gentile world, and, together with the fixing there of his Episcopal seat, exercised an undisputed sovereignty over the whole flock of Christ. It is evident that his labors were mainly among his own countrymen, and that when absent from Jerusalem, he was chiefly occupied in preaching Christ to his dispersed brethren, the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bythinia, to whom his first Epistle is addressed. And there is every reason to suppose that he was thus engaged, sowing the precious seed of the kingdom, during the interval of which we have spoken.

We next read of him as present on the memorable occasion which had convened the Apostles and many of the brethren at Jerusalem, to settle a question that was then greatly agitating the Church. The part which he took in the proceedings of that assembly is, on more than one account, deserving of our attention. To understand it, we must briefly revert to the origin of this controversy.

Among the churches embracing Gentile converts, Antioch was at that period the most noted and considerable. The Christian community in that city was the most numerous and prosperous of any beyond the bounds of Judea, and greatly had it been favored in the residence there, for a considerable time, of some of the most eminent of the Apostles and other teachers of the Church.

From thence the first foreign missionaries were publicly and solemnly sent forth, and Paul and Barnabas had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. There is every reason to suppose that the growth, piety and holy joy of this Church kept pace with its abundant privileges. But how exposed is the tranquillity of the Church of Jesus to be interrupted by restless passions and unholy attempts— sometimes by the arts of the ambitious and hypocritical, and sometimes by the unscriptural doctrines and unwarrantable practices of sincere and honest, but deluded men? The root of bitterness springs up readily, even in the soil where Apostolic hands have planted and watered. peaceful church of Antioch was thrown into sad. confusion by certain self-commissioned intruders, who came down thither from Jerusalem, intent upon imposing on the converted Gentiles the burden of the Jewish ceremonial law. "And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." These men had professedly embraced the Gospel, but they had no just conception of its completeness and preciousness. They retained their old Jewish leaven of Pharisaical reliance upon the Mosaic ritual. They seemed to think the simple Gospel an insufficient foundation of the eternal hopes of

The