inhabitants slain or sold into slavery, and the place itself became an insignificant village. A truce with the Equians for three, and with Veii for twenty years, soon followed (B.C. 425) and the Tribunes made a demand that the recently conquered lands should be divided among the Commons who had no pay for their services in the army, and that the taxes for the payment of the troops should be levied on the lands of the patricians (B.C. 424).

5. The Volscians now seeing that the growing power of Rome was daily threatening their independence (B.c. 423), gathered a large and well trained army to try their strength once more. Led by the Consul C. Sempronius Artratinus the Romans were all but captured through want of skill in their commander. Only the courage of Sex. Tempanius saved the whole force from this calamity. The news of the disaster reached Rome and produced great excitement, but when Sempronius was accused by the Tribunes, and when the next year (B.C. 422) the new Tribune Hortensius impeached him, Tempanius and three brother officers-all Tribunes-saved him from punishment by inducing Hortensius to forego the charge. Of the military talents of Sempronius, Tempanius refused to give an opinion, but of his valorous courage he spoke in the highest terms, while he declared that he was honoured and beloved by all his soldiers. About this time (B.C. 421) two additional quæstors were created, whose duties were, along with the two already existing, to take charge of the public money, to pay the army, and Government salaries, to arrange public funerals, to dispose of booty taken in war, and to accommodate foreign ambassadors. Besides the "treasury quæstors," there were two "law quaestors," who conducted State trials and were responsible for the execution of the law. Now, that two more quæstors were appointed, the Tribunes insisted that these should be chosen from the plebeians, but it was agreed that both plebeians and patricians should be eligible to the new office. Henceforth, a quaestor attended every Roman army, in order to manage the sale of booty; and all booty was to be divided among the soldiers or else placed in the common treasury, and not as heretofore, in the Publicum of the patricians. For years now, there were warm disputes at Rome about the public lands, but though the plebeians were slowly gaining ground in these discussions the patricians, by clever scheming managed to get a majority of the Tribunes, and by such means long deferred the settlement of this important question. The wars with the Equians and Volscians were continued. The former of these peoples joined by the Lavicans ravaged

the lands of Tusculum (B.c. 418), and actually encamped on Mount Algidus. Though a Roman army was beaten, Q. Servilius Priscus being made Dictator, marched against them, took their camp and stormed Lavici. In eight days the Dictator laid down his office. Three years later, M. Postumius Regillensis, a Consular Tribune, at the head of an army, took the Equian town of Volæ. This successful commander had promised his soldiers the plunder of the place, but, the men being mostly plebeians, he had broken his promise; besides this, at Rome, about the division of the conquered lands there were hot disputes, during which, some imprudent remarks were made about the troops. The soldiers were enraged, and mutinied, and while the quæstor was selling the booty and trying to appease the men, he was struck by a stone thrown by the mutineers. Postumius met this insubordination with very severe punishment; but the men became infuriated, turned on their leader and stoned him to death (B.C. 414). For the next year, were elected through this outrage, Consuls (B.C. 413) who opened an enquiry into the death of Postumius. The enquiry was fairly conducted and the guilty were condemned to death, but with the option of dying by their own hands, without the usual torture of the lictors, the Consuls considering, according to Hooke, that Postumius had provoked the mutiny by unnecessary severity. For several years now, the plague, famine, and internal disputes afflicted Rome, and the Consuls were compelled to buy corn to relieve the famishing people.

6. The people of Antium joined the Equians and Volscians, but they were defeated by the Dictator P. Cornelius (B.C. 408), and again, two years later (B.C. 406) the Romans sent out three armies under the Consular Tribunes, L. Valerius, P. Cornelius and N. Fabius. Victory again attended the Roman arms. Tarracina, situated on a steep hill over the Pontine marshes was taken, the plunder divided among the three armies and a colony sent to the town. Then followed the last war with Veii (B.C. 405). The truce had expired, but the Romans, who had carefully observed its conditions, now demanded satisfaction for the murderous crime of their King, Tolumnius. The people of Veii asked aid of other peoples of Etruria, but, at present in vain, whether from fear of the Gauls who were soon to appear North of the Apennines, and had already crossed the Alps, or through jealousy of the Veientines, or because they deemed the walls of Veii impregnable, does not appear.

The Editor's Desk.

QUERIES AND ANSWERS.

QUERY 1.-ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD "TAMMUZ.” MR. EDITOR,-In the prophecies of Ezekiel (viii. 14), I find the word "Tammuz." Will you please explain the meaning of that word?

A. C. R. ANSWER.The passage referred to reads thus-"Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz." The word Tammuz has two applications. It is the Jewish name of the fourth month of the year, and it is the Jewish name applied to Adonis, one of the heathen gods, which the Jews worshipped when they had fallen into idolatry. Heathen mythology represents Adonis as a beautiful youth, who was slain by a wild boar, and greatly lamented by Venus, by the Muses, and by idolatrous women, who annually mourned his death in amorous lamentations. Lucian, speaking of heathen gods and goddesses, says, "I saw, at Biblis, the great temple of Venus, in which are annually celebrated the mysteries of Adonis, in which I am initiated. It is said that Adonis was killed in the country by a wild boar; and in perpetual remembrance of this event, a public mourning is solemnized every year, with doleful lamentations; then follows a funeral as of a dead body, and on the next day his resurrection is celebrated, for it is said he flew up into heaven." Those annual rites were celebrated with practices too obscene and disgusting to be named. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Syrians were degraded by this annual custom; and when the Jews fell into idolatry, the annual honours of Adonis, with their lascivious rites, were performed even by them; and Ezekiel saw in a vision Jewish women practising those unhallowed and wanton rites close by the sanctuary of God. Milton, in his 'Paradise Lost," refers to this obscene superstition in the following graphic lines:

"Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;

While smooth Adonis, from his native rock,
Ran purple to the sea, suffused with blood
Of Thammuz, yearly wounded. The love tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat:
Those wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led,

His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah." *

We may mention that Ezekiel, in the same vision, saw other heathen practices besides the mysteries of Adonis. The idolatry of Persia, Egypt, and Greece are depicted in the same chapter, and their adoption by the Jews was a melancholy evidence that they had deeply sunk into apostacy.

QUERY 2.-ON THE NAME OF JEHOVAH NOT BEING MADE KNOWN TO THE JEWISH PATRIARCHS.

SIR, In the Book of Exodus (vi. 2, 3) I read thus-" And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." Now, sir, I often find the name Jehovah applied to God in the times of those patriarchs, and indeed during many years before their existence; how, then, can it be said that God was not made known to them by that name? A TEACHER.

ANSWER.-JEHOVAH is the proper name of God-a name applied exclusively to himself. This name indicates self-existence, and implies all the absolute perfections of the Divine nature involved in self-existence. Hence this name is appropriate to none but the true and proper Deity. His "name alone is Jehovah, the Most High over all the earth" (Psalm lxxxiii. 18). The name commonly rendered God, in the Old Testament, is ELOHIM, but this name is in Scripture applied also to judges, rulers, magistrates, angels, and even to the idols and imaginary deities of the heathen. Not so the name Jehovah. It belongs exclusively to the only true and living God. It is true, the name Jehovah was applied to God before the times of the Jewish patriarchs; and, indeed, they themselves used this name: and yet it is also true that God was not known to them by this name. He was called by that name, but that name was not known to them in its full import-in its profound, comprehensive, and glorious meaning, as it was intended to be displayed in the following ages. Jehovah had been made known

* See Milton, book i., 446; Lucian, "De Dea Syrá,” tom. ii., p. $78; Bion's "Idyl on Adonis," and the "Orphic Hymn to Adonis."

to the patriarchs as "God Almighty," the God All-sufficient, as that name implies; and the dispensation under which they lived, and the revelations they received, gave abundant evidence of his Allmightiness and All-sufficiency; but there was a profound depth and a hidden glory in the name Jehovah to be unfolded in the dispensations which were to follow, and one of these dispensations was to be inaugurated just at the time when God appeared to Moses and uttered these solemn words. Hence the wonders immediately wrought in Egypt, followed by those greater still in the wilderness ; hence the successive revelations by a long line of prophets, unfolding a continually brightening testimony of God; hence, too, the coming of Christ, the incarnate God, the image of the invisible, the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person; hence, too, redemption, the full splendour of the Gospel, ushering in "glory to God in the highest," and giving "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." All these successively made known the mysterious Jehovah in a manner and to a degree never known to the Jewish patriarchs. An advanced stage of this sublime discovery began when God appeared to Moses, which discovery went on progressing from age to age, and culminated with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, when the three persons in the Godhead-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the ineffable Jehovah-stood forth in the fullest and most glorious manifestation of their personality and perfections.

QUERY 3.-ON THE DAYS OF TRIBULATION SHORTENED FOR THE SAKE OF THE ELECT.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,-I read in Matthew xxiv. 22—“ And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Will you please explain this verse for A SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER.

ANSWER.-The days referred to were the days of dreadful tribulation when Jerusalem was to be destroyed. The "no flesh" that should be saved mean the Jewish people on whom that tribulation fell. The "elect" mean true Christians; and the shortening of the days for their sakes, means that God would not allow his awful judgments to be prolonged or continued to the utter extermination of the Jewish race, because some of these were true Christians, and God would not allow them to perish with the rest; and others, though not converted to Christianity, yet were to be spared to be