to the Corinthians, we can see clearly that he ascribes a greater significance to this Apostle for the Roman church than he does to Peter. Irenaeus and Eusebius name Linus rather as the first Roman bishop, and even Epiphanius himself makes a distinction plainly between the apostolical and episcopal offices."

The martyrdom of Peter.

It is the universal voice of antiquity, that Peter was crucified in the persecution under Nero. Consequently, as already remarked, his death cannot fall in the year 67, as even most later historians give it, following Eusebius and Jerome, but must be placed in the year 64, in which this persecution broke out directly after the firing of the city in July, and in which also an end was put to the earthly labors of Paul, only perhaps somewhat earlier and by the less degrading process of decapitation. As the place of his punishment, according to the testimony of Caius already quoted, was pointed out at the end of the second century the Vatican hill beyond the Tiber, where lay the Circus and Nero's Gardens, and where according to Tacitus the persecution of the christians actually took place. There also was built to his memory the church of Peter, as over Paul's grave on the way to Ostia without the city the church of Paul.

The oldest testimony for the crucifixion of Peter we find already in the appendix to John's Gospel c. xxi: 18, 19, where our Lord himself, in the memorable dialogue there recorded, foretells to him that in his old age he would stretch forth his hands, and that another should bind him and lead whither naturally he would not wish. Tertullian remarks expressly, that Peter in his passion was made like the Lord." The statement, that he suffered crucifixion with his head downwards toward the earth, meets us first in Origen," and this was taken afterwards

10 See Schliermann's Clementinen (1844) p. 115, and Gieseler's K. G. I. 1, p. 103. 281.

"De praescr. haeret. c. 36.

nicae adaequatur.

12 In Euseb. H. E. III, 1: Пérpos - ὃς καὶ ἐπὶ τέλει ἐν Ρώμη γενόμενος ανεσκο λοπίσθη κατὰ κεφαλῆς, οὕτως αὑτὸς ἀξιώσας παθεῖν. This is then thus paraphrased in the spirit of monkish piety by Rufinus: crucifixus est deorsum capite demerso, quod ipse ita fieri deprecatus est, ne exaequari Domino videretur. In like style Jerome, who had a special relish for such traits, De vir. illustr. c. 1: a quo (Nerone) et affixus cruci, martyrio coronatus est, capite ad terram verso et in sublime pedibus elevatis; asserens se indignum, qui sic crucifigiretur ut Dominus suus.

as an evidence of his special humility, by which he felt himself unworthy to die in the same manner with Christ. When we read in Tacitus of the unnatural tortures to which the christians were subjected by Nero, the fact of such a mode of death seems not improbable, although the motive brought in to explain it betrays a later sickly conception of the nature of humility, whereas the Apostles counted it their greatest honor and joy rather to be like their Lord and Master in all particulars. It is related by Ambrose, that Peter shortly before his death, being overpowered by his former love of life, made his escape from prison, but was arrested and confounded in his flight by the appearance of the Saviour bearing his cross, who in reply to the question, "Lord, whither goest thou?" solemnly responded: "I am going to Rome, to be crucified again!" Whereupon Peter hastily turned back and met death with joy. This tradition still lives in the mouth of the people of Rome, and is embodied in a church styled Domine quo vadis, in front of the Sebastian gate, on the Appian way. It is one of those significant stories, that rest on no historical fact indeed but still on a right apprehension of the character in question, and to which may be applied the Italian proverb: se non è vero, è ben trovato. To shrink from suffering was in truth a characteristic trait of the natural Simon (comp. xvi: 22, 23, the account of his denial of Christ and what Christ says to him John xxi: 18). But at so great an age he had no doubt long surmounted this feeling, and welcomed the hour, when he was counted worthy to seal his love to the Saviour with his blood and permitted to put off his earthly tabernacle (2 Peter i: 14), for the purpose of entering on "the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away" (1 Peter i: 4), which he knew to be reserved for him in heaven. Translated by J. W. N.

THE ANGLICAN CRISIS.

THE man who takes no lively interest in the present ecclesiastical troubles of England, under the notion possibly that they belong only to a standpoint of prejudice and superstition which he and the American world generally have happily left forever behind, has good reason to suspect some fatal flaw in the constitution of his own piety. Never since the age of the Reformation, has the progress of the Church presented practical questions of more solemn moment, or issues of more thrilling significance for the future. The course of events there now may be regarded as eminently historical, in the true and proper sense of this term; which is not reached by any means with the notion merely of passing years and their budget of facts, but implies the idea of actual movement in the world's inward life, the development of tendencies and principles into new results of general and lasting force for the nation and the race. Such palpably is the nature of the great church agitation, which has been for some time shaking England to its centre, and the end of which no one is able yet to calculate or foresee. It is no superficial or merely transient commotion. It is no play of simply pragmatical contrivance and policy, in the hands of men intent on altogether other ends; however ready the art of courts and political parties may show itself, as in all similar cases, to turn the movement into its own service. Under all such false purposes and aims, the ruling power of the agitation is undoubtedly a true interest of humanity, the working of religion, the most fundamental of all forces in history, in a form which it is quite possible that kings and parliaments may find as much beyond their control at last as the whirlwind itself.

Serious men feel this in England; and they are coming to feel it, more and more, also in other countries. Nor is this feeling confined by any means to those who are members of the Episcopal Church. It extends to all Protestant communions, just in proportion to their intelligence and their knowledge of what is going forward in the world. This itself may be taken as a criterion of the real general historical significance of the problem, which is here in the course of practical solution. It is only what is thus universally significant in its own nature, that has power to engage iu this way general attention and concern; and then it is not so much through any personal reflection that this takes place, as in obedience rather to a sort of instinctive consciousness, by which men feel themselves sympathetically

borne along with the authority of such a movement, whether it suit their judgment and taste otherwise to make much account of it or not. It is curious to observe, how this law works in the case now under consideration. With all their professed indifference or hostility to the Establishment, Dissenters of every hue find themselves forced to mix themselves up to a certain extent with its controversies and quarrels, though hardly able to tell in many cases where exactly it becomes them to take their position. The Presbyterianism of Scotland too is not able to sit still; and even the Puritanism of this country, while it affects to despise the whole doctrine of the Sacraments and of the Church as it is here in controversy, sees itself constrained notwithstanding to acknowledge indirectly the deep solemnity of the struggle, as one in which some interest of its own is felt to be ultimately at stake. All this goes to show, we say, the profound meaning and far reaching importance of what is taking place. It is indeed a great crisis in the history of Protestantism, not for England only but for all countries; and not to see and feel the solemnity of it in this view, as we have said before, is to betray by the very fact a sad want of earnestness in religion altogether. Only the ignorant or frivolous can be indifferent to the progress of so great a question.

The critical character of the movement is shown, not only by the general feeling of anxious awe now mentioned with which it is fixing upon itself more and more the gaze of the world, but by the central relation also in which it stands plainly to the bearings of previous history. It is no sudden excitement, that comes no one can tell whence and looks no one can tell whither. In all parts of the world, Protestantism has been for some time past in a course of inward preparation, either theoretically or practically, for just such a powerful reaction in favor of the old idea of the Church, with its corresponding principles and doctrines. There must have been in this way a mighty predisposition in the English mind towards Catholicism, or at least a mighty dissatisfaction inwardly with Puritanism, to account at all for the rapid growth of the Tractarian system, since its first appearance fifteen years ago in Oxford. It is easy enough moreover to point out powerful tendencies, which have been working either negatively or positively in other lands also, in the same general direction. The time has not yet fully come indeed, to estimate these in their whole strength. But it is plain enough, for all thinking men, that the problem of the Church Question, as it enters into the controversy between Catholics and Protestants, has been for some time past challenging reconsideration

and demanding new settlement; and that this call is powerfully enforced from all sides, by what we may style the whole experience of the age, in a political and secular as well as ecclesiastical view. The English movement falls in with this wide spread and manifestly providential tendency, as it is clearly also the fruit of it and one of its most startling and awakening results. This of course shows again its vast historical significance and force. It lies at the very heart undoubtedly of the general life of the age; and it is all in order accordingly, that the earnest and thoughtful, who stand in the nearest sympathy always with this life, should regard what is passing with more than usual interest and concern.

Taking the controversy in the broad view now noticed, there is no reason whatever for restraining this interest to the bounds of the Episcopal Church. The question in agitation is something far deeper at last, than the proper view to be taken of the Protestantism of this particular body, or of its rights and claims over against the Church of Rome. It looks directly to the whole constitution of Protestantism, and grapples at once with the deepest and most universal issue that holds between it and Romanism. Episcopacy here becomes a mere circumstance; it may be in itself an element of some considerable account for the final settlement of the subject in hand, but it is still a secondary and subordinate particular only, and by no means the central or main thing, the very root and marrow, as some affect to think, of the whole question that is to be solved. To make it so, either on one side or the other, is sheer pedantry of the poorest and most pitiful kind. The question which lies at the heart of this movement, and communicates to it all its depth and power, is of no such shallow range. It goes far below this, to the very foundations of the whole cause of the Reformation. It is not necessary that one should be an Episcopalian, to feel himself brought into direct contact with its vastly solemn scope. He may feel this also, and ought to feel it, as a Presbyterian, as a Methodist, and even as a Congregational Puritan. For under every such character, he is still bound to take a lively interest in all that concerns the general constitution of that common Protestantism, out of which these unfortunate distinctions spring. And this interest is due to the case before us, independently altogether of the view that may be taken of the main question in debate. Let it even be supposed, that the whole drift and aim of the Catholic tendency is false, and that the true perfection of Protestantism is to be sought only in its being stripped of the last shred of churchly feeling, (after the taste of the Baptists,)