talactites. The symmetry is
remarkable, and the reverberations are strangely musical. The Pearly
Pool, in a chamber near a pit 86 ft. deep, glistens with countless cave
pearls. The route beyond is between rows of stately shafts, and ends in
a copious chalybeate spring. Blind flies, spiders, beetles and crickets
abound; and now and then a blind crawfish darts through the waters; but
as compared with many caverns the fauna and flora are not abundant. It
is conjectured, not without some reason, that there is a connexion, as
yet undiscovered, between the Colossal and the Mammoth caves. It seems
certain that Eden Valley, which now lies between them, is a vast
"tumble-down" of an immense cavern that formerly united them into one.
(H. C. H.)

COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE, the twelfth book of the New Testament, the
authorship of which is ascribed to the Apostle Paul. Colossae, like the
other Phrygian cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, had not been visited
by Paul, but owed its belief in Jesus Christ to Epaphras, a Colossian,
who had been converted by Paul, perhaps in Ephesus, and had laboured not
only in his native city but also in the adjacent portions of the Lycus
valley,--a Christian in whom Paul reposed the greatest confidence as one
competent to interpret the gospel of whose truth Paul was convinced (i.
7; iv. 12, 13). This Epaphras, like the majority of the Colossians, was
a Gentile. It is probable, however, both from the letter itself and from
the fact that Colossae was a trade centre, that Jews were there with
their synagogues (cf. also Josephus, _Ant._ xii. 149). And it is further
probable that some of the Gentiles, who afterwards became Christians,
were either Jewish proselytes or adherents who paid reverence to the God
of the Jews. At all events, the letter indicates a sensitiveness on the
part of the Christians not only to oriental mysticism and theosophy (cf.
Sir W. M. Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, and _Church in the
Roman Empire_), but also to the Judaism of the Diaspora.

Our first definite knowledge of the Colossian Church dates from the
presence of Epaphras in Rome in A.D. 62-64 (or A.D. 56-58), when Paul
was a prisoner. He arrived with news, perhaps with a letter (J. R.
Harris, _Expositor_, Dec. 1898, pp. 404 ff.), touching the state of
religion in Colossae. Paul learns, to his joy, of their faith, hope and
love; of the order and stability of their faith; and of their reception
of Chris