n the amphitheatre the aged Ignatius.

Pliny the younger, who was proconsul under Trajan, may well be
mentioned in connection with the emperor, as a striking illustration
of the truth, that goodness and amiableness towards one class of men
is often turned into cruelty towards another. History can hardly show
a more gentle and lovely character than Pliny. While pleading at the
bar, he always sought out the grievances of the poorest and most
despised persons, entered into their wrongs with his whole soul, and
never took a fee. Who can read his admirable letters without being
touched by their tenderness and warmed by their benignity and
philanthropy: and yet, this tender-hearted Pliny coolly plied with
excruciating torture two spotless females, who had served as
deaconesses in the Christian church, hoping to extort from them matter
of accusation against the Christians. He commanded Christians to
abjure their faith, invoke the gods, pour out libations to the statues
of the emperor, burn incense to idols, and curse Christ. If they
refused, he ordered them to execution.

Who has not heard of the Emperor Titus--so beloved for his mild
virtues and compassionate regard for the suffering, that he was named
"The Delight of Mankind;" so tender of the lives of his subjects that
he took the office of high priest, that his hands might never be
defiled with blood; and was heard to declare, with tears, that he had
rather die than put another to death. So intent upon making others
happy, that when once about to retire to sleep, and not being able to
recall any particular act of beneficence performed during the day, he
cried out in anguish, "Alas! I have lost a day!" And, finally, whom
the learned Kennet, in his Roman Antiquities, characterizes as "the
only prince in the world that has the character of _never doing an ill
action_." Yet, witnessing the mortal combats of the captives taken to
war, killing each other in the amphitheatre, amidst the acclamations
of the populace, was a favorite amusement with Titus. At one time he
exhibited shows of gladiators, which lasted one hundred days, during
which the amphitheatre was flooded with human blood. At another of
his public exhibitions he caused five thousand wild beasts to be
baited in the amphitheatre. During the siege of Jerusalem, he set
ambushes to seize the famishing Jews, who stole out of the city by
night to glean food in the valleys: these he would first dreadfully
scourge, then