ly
scourged to death in the Roman forum. For the vestal herself, thus led
away, a cell was dug beneath the ground, and vaulted over. A pit led
down to this subterranean dungeon, entering it by one side. In the
dungeon itself there was placed a table, a lamp, and a little food.
The descent was by a ladder which passed down through the pit. The
place of this terrible preparation for punishment was near one of the
gates of the city, and when all was ready the unhappy vestal was
brought forth, at the head of a great public procession,--she herself
being attended by her friends and relatives, all mourning and
lamenting her fate by the way. The ceremony, in a word, was in all
respects a funeral, except that the person who was to be buried was
still alive. On arriving at the spot, the wretched criminal was
conducted down the ladder and placed upon the couch in the cell. The
assistants who performed this service then returned; the ladder was
drawn up; earth was thrown in until the pit was filled; and the erring
girl was left to her fate, which was, when her lamp had burned out,
and her food was expended, to starve by slow degrees, and die at last
in darkness and despair.

If we would do full justice to the ancient founders of civilization
and empire, we should probably consider their enshrinement of Vesta,
and the contriving of the ceremonies and observances which were
instituted in honor of her, not as the setting up of an idol or false
god, for worship, in the sense in which Christian nations worship the
spiritual and eternal Jehovah--but rather as the embodiment of an
idea,--a principle,--as the best means, in those rude ages, of
attracting to it the general regard.

Even in our own days, and in Christian lands, men erect a pole in
honor of liberty, and surmount it with the image of a cap. And if,
instead of the cap, they were to place a carved effigy of liberty
above, and to assemble for periodical celebrations below, with games,
and music, and banners, we should not probably call them idolaters. So
Christian poets write odes and invocations to Peace, to
Disappointment, to Spring, to Beauty, in which they impersonate an
idea, or a principle, and address it in the language of adoration, as
if it were a sentient being, possessing magical and mysterious powers.
In the same manner, the rites and celebrations of ancient times are
not necessarily all to be considered as idolatry, and denounced as
inexcusably wicked and absurd.