those
splendidly illuminated Gospel vellums which art-despising monks kneeled
upon from the seventh to the tenth century, and which art-loving monks,
even in the middle of the nineteenth century, used in the decoration of
their monastery halls at Mount Athos.

I come to a phase in the study of numismatics which to many will seem
paradoxical--the romance of coins--and pick out here and there a few
incidents, which I shall string together, not heeding closely
chronological sequence.

One of the saddest pictures in all history is the first mention that is
made of money. Sarah was dead, and Abraham was sojourning among
strangers in a strange land. He mourned for his wife, and stood up
before the sons of Heth, and begged of them to intercede with Ephron,
the Hittite, for the cave of Machpelah, as a burial place. Ephron
liberally offered him the cave and the field, but the patriarch insisted
upon payment; whereupon the Hittite answered: 'My lord, hearken unto me;
the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt
me and thee? Bury, therefore, thy dead.' Abraham weighed the 'four
hundred shekels of silver current (money) with the merchant,' and the
field and the trees and the caves were Abraham's, and Sarah was buried.
The first use of money is the last, and the cave of Machpelah, typical
of the last resting place of all men, is the most important because the
most imperative use of money. He that hoards and he that squanders,
Croesus and Lazarus, at the end of life, provided they have money
enough to purchase their caves of Machpelah, have fortune enough, and
more than enough, for they may not carry gold and silver with them
through the valley of the Shadow. We buy and sell, we loan and
speculate, we hoard our shining wealth as Croesus hoarded the golden
sands of Pactolus in the treasury of Delhi, but when we come to the cave
of Machpelah, we leave it at the entrance, and go into the darkness
unencumbered.

The earliest and standard specimen of Roman coinage was the _as_,
subdivided almost indefinitely, and originally weighing a pound. This
ponderous coin subserved a purpose which our penny does to-day. It had
upon the obverse the double-headed Janus, and upon the reverse the keel
of a ship, rudely done, but answering the requirements of the light,
juvenile gambling known as pitching coppers. _Capita aut navem_, 'Heads
or the ship,' the Roman boys cried, as Young America cries now, 'Heads
or tails.' It