passed away. And even as the holy Apostle Paul, who was one of those who stoned St. Stephen, is now united with him in heaven, where they love with an eternal love, so I hope also that your lordships, who have been my judges here on earth, and all those who have participated in any way in my death, may be eternally reunited and happy in possession of the salvation which our divine Saviour Jesus Christ has merited for us on the cross. To this end I will pray from my heart for your lordships, and above all for my lord the king, that God may accord him faithful counsellors, and that the truth may no longer remain hidden from him.”
And saying these words with much sweetness and fulness of heart, Sir Thomas was silent.
As soon as he had ceased speaking the guards, by Cromwell’s order, pressed around him. An axe was raised, the edge of which was turned toward the condemned by a man who walked before him. And so he was led back on foot, through the streets, to the Tower, there to wait until the hour of execution should be appointed by the king, after he had affixed his signature to the death-warrant.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS TO PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD AND THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.[110]
Mr. Withrow claims to have produced the only English book on the Catacombs in which the latest results of exploration are fully given and interpreted from a Protestant point of view. We must decline to acknowledge the justice of his claim. His book is very far indeed from giving the latest results of exploration, and he certainly is not the first who has attempted to interpret them from a Protestant point of view. He is, however, as far as we know, the last; and as he has pretty faithfully repeated all the misstatements and mistakes of his various predecessors in the same subject, only adding a few more of his own, it will be worth while to set before our readers a short refutation of some of them. Indeed, this work of refutation is the more necessary because “the testimony of the Catacombs relative to primitive Christianity” is daily increasing in value, as our knowledge of the Catacombs is becoming more exact and scientific. Some years ago, and to some intelligences even now, a painting or an inscription from the Catacombs was “a monument of ancient Christianity,” and one such monument was as good evidence as another of primitive Christian doctrine. It has been reserved to the labors of De Rossi to introduce light and order into this chaos; and those who profess to publish the fruits
of his discoveries ought not to withhold this most important portion of them; at least, they ought scrupulously to follow the lines of chronology which he has established, or else themselves to establish others on surer foundations. Mr. Withrow’s neglect of these distinctions—indeed, of all chronological order whatever—is quite unpardonable. Whilst in the title of his work he promises to examine “the testimony of the Catacombs relative to primitive Christianity,” we sometimes find that the greater portion of the evidence he adduces on some of the most important questions of Christian doctrine is not even taken from the Catacombs at all. Let us look, by way of example, at a single doctrine—the elementary doctrine of the Resurrection—and see how he deals with it. “This glorious doctrine,” he says, “which is peculiarly the characteristic of our holy religion as distinguished from all the faiths of antiquity, was everywhere recorded throughout the Catacombs. It was symbolized in the ever-recurring representations of the story of Jonas and of the raising of Lazarus, and was strongly asserted in numerous inscriptions” (p. 431). But of the inscriptions which he proceeds to quote, one is spurious (Alexander mortuus non est, etc.); others belong to the years 449, 544, etc., long after the practice of burial in the Catacombs had ceased. And we shall presently have occasion to notice other sins, scarcely less flagrant, against every canon of chronology belonging to the subject
which he professes to handle. But first let us say a few words as to what those canons are, and how they have been established.