of Independence; the first Congress met here,
and the Declaration of Independence was signed (1776) in a building still
standing; here too the Federal Union was signed (1778) and the
constitution drawn up (1787), and from 1790 to 1800 it was the capital of
the United States.

PHILADOR, FRANCOIS ANDRE, a celebrated composer and chess-player,
born at Dreux; wrote a number of operas; in regard to chess his great
maxim was "Pawns are the soul of chess"; fled at the time of the
Revolution to London, where he died (1726-1795).

PHILAE, an island of syenite stone in the Nile, near Assouan, in
Nubia, 1200 ft. long and 50 ft. broad; is almost covered with ancient
buildings of great beauty, among which is a temple of Isis, with a great
gateway dating from 361 B.C., which was converted into a church in 577.

PHILATORY, a transparent reliquary to contain and exhibit the bones
and relics of saints.

PHILEMON, EPISTLE TO, a short letter by Paul to a member of the
Church at Colossae on behalf of a slave, Onesimus, who had deserted his
service, gone off with some of his property, and taken refuge in Rome,
but had been converted to Christ, and whom he begs not to manumit, but
simply to receive back as a brother for his sake.

PHILEMON AND BAUCIS, in the Greek mythology a pair of poor people
who, in fond attachment to each other, lived in a small cottage in
Phrygia by themselves and gave hospitality to gods in disguise when every
other door was shut against them, and to whom, in the judgment that
descended upon their inhospitable neighbours, the gods were propitious,
and did honour by appointing them to priesthood, when they would rather
have been servants, in a temple metamorphosed out of their cottage. Here
they continued to minister to old age, and had but one prayer for
themselves, that they might in the end die together; when as they sat at
the door of the temple one day, bent with years, they were changed, he
into an oak and she into a linden. This is Ovid's version of the story,
to which he adds as the moral of it, "Those who piously honour the gods
are themselves held in honour."

PHILIP, an Indian chief whose father had been a staunch friend of
the Pilgrim settlers, was himself friendly to the colonists, till in 1671
their encroachments provoked him to retaliation; after six years'
fighting, in which many colonists perished and great massacres of Indians
took place, he was defeated and slain, 1676.

PHILIP