national glory for Italy. He was an Italian, a Roman of the Cornelia family, that first Gentile converted to Christianity! Still, Peter's grand and final commission was to the Hebrews. There were, of course, Hebrews in Rome, and more in Alexandria. But did he go to Alexandria? No. The authors of the time do not set the number of Jews at above five or six thousand in Rome at that period; and these, among five millions of Romans, made but a small fraction.

"Peter must have gone where the Hebrews were great in number, and powerful in influence, as they were in the Chaldean provinces-partly from recent immigration, partly from their scattering under Shalmanezer, 721 B.C., and partly from their non-return from the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, 588. Flavius and Strabo, Greek historians, make a calculation of not less than four millions in the province of Babylon alone. Therefore, let Peter, their Ápostle, go into the midst of Babylon; St. James and St. John divided with Peter the Apostleship of the circumcision; John went to Ephesus, and James remained in Jerusalem.

"But it is said, Why do you make Peter die in Babylon? Because I find that the final epistles of the Apostles indicate to us the place of their death. We know positively that Paul died in Rome from his last Epistle to Timothy; and Peter's second letter from Babylon speaks of his approach to martyrdom, and prepares his flock for it—' Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle' (2 Peter i. 14). Therefore in Babylon I conclude that he died; but if Babylon entered into no controversy about this with Rome, it is because until the fourth century there was no claim made about it. In the age of the blessed Apostles who were martyred, as when Stephen was stoned, his friends mourned for him and buried him-that was all; there was no great stir made to possess their bones, and to honour them after death. We know of no city that made a strife for the relics of the Apostles. "The Romans may be certain that they have had an Apostle to be an Evangelist, and to confirm their Churches. They have had the greatest of all the Apostles, if they have had St. Paul; who, though he calls himself the least, laboured more than all the other Apostles, not only by his inspired writings, but also by personal evangelization.

"As to the appeal to the Catholics, it is said, What would become of the Church if St. Peter had not been in Rome? But Christ has promised to be with the Church to the end of the world—not with Peter, not with Paul; but by His Spirit, who will take of the things of Christ in the Holy Scriptures, and show them unto us."

There followed then only the final reply of Signor Guidi, the Catholic priest, who was obliged to recur to the old ground of Rome that facts are not to be proved only by Scripture and by logic. He desired to throw all his weight into the scale of the testimony of Tradition, against the silence of Scripture. We refer our readers to the whole of the original document, which we have endeavoured, however imperfectly, to condense, on account of its extreme interest with regard to the present rapid growth of Romanizing tendencies in England.

It is not the first time that these facts have been announced concerning St. Peter; but it is certainly the first time they have been published abroad in ROME, and from ROME, and thus presented fully for the consideration of the people of Italy. For them it is, indeed, a new thing to see the base of their whole hierarchy crumble like chalk under the weight of inspired evidence. May it make them willing to accept in PETER'S stead CHRIST JESUS, and also Sr. PAUL, and all his Epistles, while they need not resign Peter's own, though written from the Chaldean Babylon. They will not make a bad exchange in Apostles; but surely the would-be successors of Peter are proved to be "fallible" men.

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Meanwhile, to students of the Bible in all lands a fresh and welcome light appears to fall on their long-treasured Epistle to the Romans, and on St. Peter's two letters from Babylon also. In reading the foregoing discussion, we are carried back to the rise of the Primitive Church of Christ, whose Apostles and nursing fathers were no other than men of the ancient chosen race,-"men of Israel,"-and men who by no means neglect to claim their national privilege. St. Paul says to the Romans, ch. iii. 1, "What advantage then hath the Jew? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." Peter writes to the men of the circumcision, although as scattered strangers, yet "a chosen generation,—a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people;" and being this, according to the flesh," and also having in the spirit "been called out of darkness into marvellous light" by Christ (1 Peter ii. 9), he then in the next verse makes definite reference to the Prophet Hosea, ch. i. (though not by name), and addresses these same strangers, as in time past, not a people ("Lo-ammi"), but now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy ("Lo-ruhamah"), but now have obtained mercy. St. Paul, Rom. ix. 25, quotes Hosea by name with the same declaration; and this "remnant according to the election of grace," were taught of the Holy Ghost (like Simeon and Anna, long before His outpouring at Pentecost), to witness when the child Jesus was brought into the Temple by His parents, that this "was the light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel." This Jewish witness names the Gentiles first.

Peter's great sermon at the Pentecost was carried home by the Holy Ghost to the conviction of 3000 souls. Was it not then that he used the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" committed to him by his Master (Matthew xvi. 19)," the key of the 'door,' which was Christ?" (John x. 7). The Master had said, "I am the door of the sheep;" a door has a key, and it was given to Peter, as of Israel, to open this door, especially to his Israelitish brethren. By this door came forth the Word of God

"the oracles "—no longer "bound" and restricted to the Jewish Church, but free for the Gentiles also, and with this Word Peter was to feed the lambs first (see John xxi. 15)the new-born Church, and also the sheep, many of them "the lost sheep of the House of Israel."

To these especially the Lord said HE came. Did they not form the nation to whom the kingdom of heaven was to be transferred-" a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof?" (Matt. xxi. 43.) The ten tribes of Israel constituted one nation, though then scattered largely in the Chaldean provinces and in Asia Minor, and Peter witnesses that there were among them many" elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

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We read in Scripture of the "outcasts" of Israel, and the "dispersed" of Judah. The ten tribes of Israel had been exiled 130 years earlier than Judah. The "dispersed" would signify a scattered nation, but yet visibly one, as the Jews were; but the "outcasts" may have two meanings; the outcast that no man seeketh after," and the cast or outcast from a hive which forms around itself a new community. Now whether it were Israel or Judah, the two portions of the nation had each been God's chosen people—each had always manuscript copies of His law with them, and God had said of His elect among them (Ezekiel xi. 16) " Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, yet will I be to them a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come." Our Saviour had given to His disciples to know the mark of these sheep, "My sheep hear my voice;" and this voice had declared, "Other sheep I have that are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they

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shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd "—(John x. 16).

Meantime Rome was the ruler. Jerusalem had the message. Greece gave the language. The Roman Empire was one, and both Judah and Israel were scattered abroad in it. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus scattered the Jewish Church finally, and as yet there was no one Church in its stead. One, indeed, assumed the primacy, but on false grounds, and it soon began to persecute Christ's hidden ones. But the sheep "heard the voice." This was their distinguishing mark. It was the voice of the Shepherd. The Divine oracles were at first shut up in the Jews' language, Hebrew and Syriac, and after the captivity they needed them in Chaldee. The Scriptures hal, in the Apostles' time, been made ready for the European world in Greek, and ere long Rome was to have the Latin, the first translation for Europe. This must have been very precious to the suffering Church in the catacombs, but otherwise Rome has used the Latin for hundreds of years to keep the Saviour from the people, though she has talked meanwhile very much of Peter's keys. The first races for whom the more ancient manuscript translations were made, we shall find were all present at the Pentecost, but the tracing of these we must defer to another paper.

FOR LONDON BIBLE AND DOMESTIC FEMALE MISSIONS.

Money received between April 16th and May 15th, 1872,