avoid disputes, quarrels, and slander; to apply themselves to honest callings, and to shun the company of a heretic, after the first and second admonition.

Titus was deputed to preach the gospel in Dalmatia, where he was situated when the apostle wrote his second epistle to Timothy. He afterward returned into Crete, from which it is said he propagated the gospel into the neighboring islands. He died at the age of ninety-four, and was buried in Crete. The Greeks keep his festival on the 25th of August, and the Latins on the 4th of January.

JOHN MARK.

John Mark, cousin to St. Barnabas and a disciple of his, was the son of a Christian woman named Mary, who had a house in Jerusalem, where the apostles and the faithful generally used to meet. Here they were at prayers in the night, when St. Peter, who was delivered out of prison by the angel, came and knocked at the door; and in this house the celebrated church of Sion was said to have been afterward established.

John Mark, whom some very improperly confound with the Evangelist St. Mark, adhered to St. Paul and St. Barnabas, and followed them in their return to Antioch. He continued in their company and service till they came to Perga, in Pamphylia; but then, seeing that they were undertaking a longer journey, he left them and returned to Jerusalem. This happened in the year 45 of the common era.

Some years after, that is to say in the year 51, Paul and Barnabas preparing to return into Asia, in order to visit the churches which they had formed there, the latter was of opinion that John should accompany them in this journey: but Paul would not consent to it; upon which occasion these two apostles separated. Paul went to Asia, and Barnabas with John Mark to the isle of Cyprus. What John Mark did after this journey we do not know, till we find him at Rome in the year 63, performing signal services for St. Paul during his imprisonment.

The apostle speaks advantageously of him in his epistle to the Colossians: "Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, saluteth you. If he cometh unto you, receive him." He makes mention of him again in his epistle to Philemon, written in the year 63, at which time he was with St. Paul at Rome; but in the year 65 he was with Timothy in Asia. And St. Paul, writing to Timothy, desires him to bring Marcus to Rome, adding that he was useful to him for the ministry of the gospel.

In the Greek and Latin churches, the festival of John Mark is kept on the 27th of September. Some say that he was bishop of Biblis, in Phoenicia. The Greeks give him the title of apostle, and say that the sick were cured by his shadow only. It is very probable that he died at Ephesus, where his tomb was very much celebrated and resorted to. He is sometimes called simply John, or Mark. The year of his death we are strangers to, and shall not collect all that is said of him in apocryphal and uncertain authors.

CLEMENT.

Clement is mentioned by St. Paul in his epistle to the Philippians, where the apostle says that Clement's name is written in the book of life. The generality of the fathers and other interpreters make no question but that this is the same Clement who succeeded St. Paul, after Linus and Anaclet, in the government of the church of Rome; and this seems to be intimated when, in the office for St. Clement's day, that church appoints this part of the Epistle to the Philippians to be read.

We find several things relating to Clement's life in the recognitions and constitutions called apostolic; but as those works are not all looked upon as authentic, though there may be truths in some of them derived from the tradition of the first ages, little stress is to be laid upon their testimony. St. Chrysostrom thinks that Clement, mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians, was one of the apostle's constant fellow-travellers. Irenæus, Origin, Clemens of Alexandria, and others of the ancients, assert that Clement was a disciple of the apostles; that he had seen them and heard their instructions. St. Epiphanius, Jerome, Rufinus, Bede, and some others, were of opinion, that as the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul could not be continually at Rome, by reason of the frequent journeys which they were obliged to make to other places, and it was not proper that the city of Rome should be without

a bishop, there was a necessity to supply the want of them by establishing Linus, Anaclet, and Clement, there. The constitutions inform us that Linus was ordained by St. Paul; Tertullian and Epiphanius say that St. Peter ordained Clement. Rufinus tells us that this apostle chose St. Clement for his successor. But Epiphanius believes, that after he had been made bishop of Rome by St. Peter, he refused to exercise his office till, after the death of Linus and Anaclet, he was obliged to take upon him the care of the church; and this is the most generally-received opinion. St. Peter's immediate successor was Linus; Linus was succeeded by Anaclet, and Anaclet by Clement, in the year of Christ 91, which was the tenth of the reign of Domitian.

During his government over the church of Rome, that of Corinth was disturbed by a spirit of division, upon which Clement wrote a letter to the Corinthians, which is still extant, and was so much esteemed by the ancients that they read it publicly in many churches, and some have been inclined to range it among the canonical writings.

In what manner Clement conducted himself, and how he escaped the general per secution under the emperor Domitian, we have not any certain accounts; but we are very well assured that he lived to the third year of the emperor Trajan, which is the hundredth of the Christian era. His festival is set down by Bede, and all the Latin martyrologists, on the 23d of November, and the Greeks honor him on the 24th and 25th of the same month. Rufinus and Pope Zozimus give him the title of martyr; and the Roman church, in its canon, places him among the saints who have sacrificed their lives in the cause of Christ.

Thus have we given the most ample account of the followers of the blessed Jesus; the persons who spread, and caused to be spread, the light of the gospel over the whole world, removed the veil of ignorance and superstition drawn over the king. doms of the earth, and taught us the method of attaining eternal happiness in the courts of the New Jerusalem.

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May we all follow their glorious examples! May we imitate their faith, their piety, their charity, and their love! Then shall we pass through things temporal in such a manner that we shall finally gain the things eternal," and, through the merits of an all-perfect Redeemer, be admitted as worthy guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.

THE sure word of prophecy has unfolded many a desolation which has come upon the earth; but while it thus reveals the operation, in some of its bearings, of the "mystery of iniquity," it forms itself a part of the "mystery of godliness:" and it is no less the testimony of Jesus, because it shows, as far as earthly ruins can reveal, the progress and the issue of the dominion of "other lords" over the hearts of the children of men. The sins of men have caused, and the cruelty of men has effected, the dire desolations which the word of God foretold. Signs and tokens of his judg ments there indeed have been, yet they are never to be found but where iniquity first prevailed. And though all other warnings were to fail, the sight of his past judg. ments and the sounding of those that are to come, might teach the unrepenting and unconverted sinner to give heed to the threatenings of his word, and to the terrors of the Lord, and to try his ways and turn unto God while space for repentance may be found, ere, as death leaves him, judgment shall find him. And may not the desolations which God has wrought upon the earth, and that accredit his word, wherein life and immortality are brought to light, teach the man whose God is the world, to cease to account it worthy of his worship and of his love, and to abjure that “covet ousness which is idolatry," till the idol of mammon in the temple within shall fall, as fell the image of Dagon before the ark of the Lord in which "the testimony" was Kept ?

But naming, as millions do, the name of Christ without departing from iniquity, there is another warning voice that may come more closely to them all. And it is

not only from the desolate regions where heathens dwelt, which show how holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; but also from the ruins of some of the cities where churches were formed by apostles, and where the religion of Jesus once existed in its purity, that all may learn to know that God is no respecter of persons, and that he will by no means clear the guilty. "He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

What church could rightfully claim or ever seek a higher title than that which is given in Scripture to the seven churches of Asia, the angels of which were the seven stars in the right hand of Him who is the first and the last-of Him that liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore, and that hath the keys of hell and of death; and which themselves were the seven golden candlesticks in the midst of which he walked? And who that hath an ear to hear, may not humbly hear and greatly profit by what the Spirit said unto them? (Rev. ii. and iii.)

It was

The CHURCH OF EPHESUS, after a commendation of their first works, to which they were commanded to return, were accused of having left their first love, and threatened with the removal of their candlestick out of its place, except they should repent. (Ch. ii. 5.) Ephesus is situated nearly fifty miles south of Smyrna. the metropolis of Lydia, and a great and opulent city, and (according to Strabo) the greatest emporium of Asia Minor. It was chiefly famous for the temple of Diana, "whom all Asia worshipped," which was adorned with 127 columns of Parian marble, each of a single shaft, and sixty feet high, and which formed one of the seven wonders of the world. The remains of its magnificent theatre, in which it is said that twenty thousand people could easily have been seated, are yet to be seen. (Acts xix. 29.) But "a few heaps of stones, and some miserable mud cottages, occasionally tenanted by Turks, without one Christian residing there,* are all the remains of ancient Ephesus." It is, as described by different travellers, a solenin and most forlorn spot. The epistle to the Ephesians is read throughout the world; but there is none in Ephesus to read it now. They left their first love, they returned not to their first works. Their candlestick has been removed out of its place, and the great city of Ephesus is no more.

The CHURCH OF SMYRNA was approved of as "rich," and no judgment was denounced against it. They were warned of a tribulation of ten days (the ten years' persecution by Diocletian), and were enjoined to be faithful unto death, and they would receive a crown of life. (Ch. ii. 8-11.) And, unlike to the fate of the more famous city of Ephesus, Smyrna is still a large city, containing nearly one hundred thousand inhabitants, with several Greek churches, and an English and other Christian ministers have resided in it. The light has indeed become dim, but the candlestick has not been wholly removed out of its place.

The CHURCH OF PERGAMOS is commended for holding fast the name of the Lord, and not denying his faith, during a time of persecution, and in the midst of a wicked city. But there were some in it who held doctrines and did deeds which the Lord hated. Against them he was to fight with the sword of his mouth; and all were called to repent. But it is not said, as of Ephesus, that their candlestick would be removed out of its place. (Ch. ii. 12-16.) This city, the capital of Hellespontic Mysia, was situated on the right bank of the river Caicus, nearly sixty-four miles to the north of Smyrna. Its ancient consideration may be inferred from its possessing a library of two hundred thousand volumes, which Anthony and Cleopatra transferred to Alexandria. It is also noted as the birthplace of the physician Galen. It still, in its decline, retains some part of its ancient importance; and, under the name of Bergamo, contains a population which Mr. Macfarlane estimates at fourteen thousand, of which there are about three thousand Greeks, three hundred Armenians, and not quite three hundred Jews; the rest are Turks. The town consists of small and mean wooden houses, among which appear the remains of early Christian churches, showing, "like vast fortresses amid barracks of wood."

In the CHURCH OF THYATIRA, like that of Pergamos, some tares were soon mingled with the wheat. He who hath eyes like unto a flame of fire discerneth both. Yet, happily for the souls of the people, more than for the safety of the city, the general character of that church, as it then existed, is thus described: "I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first." (Ch. ii. 19.) But against those, for such there were among * Arundel's Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia, p. 27.