ith picture galleries, parliament house, library,
university, science schools, many baths, and public gardens; it makes
machinery, agricultural implements, cutlery, flour, &c., and does a great
trade in corn, wool, hides, wines, and bacon.

PETALISM, banishment in Sparta similar to ostracism in Athens,
procured by writing the name on an olive leaf.

PETARD, a cone-shaped explosive machine for bursting open gates,
barriers, &c., made of iron and filled with powder and ball.

PETASUS, the winged-cap of the god Mercury.

PETCHORA, the largest river in Northern Russia, rises in the Ural
Mountains and flows N. through Vologda and Archangel, then westward and
N. again, entering the Arctic Ocean by a large, island-studded estuary,
after a course of 1000 m. through sombre forests and wild, sombre
scenery.

PETER, THE APOSTLE, originally called Simon, was a fisherman on the
Sea of Galilee; one of the first called by Christ to become a disciple;
the first to recognise, as the foundation-stone of the Church, the
divinity in the humanity of His Master, and the first thereafter to
recognise and proclaim that divinity as glorified in the cross, to whom
in recognising which, especially the former, was committed the keys of
the kingdom of heaven, and who accordingly was the first to open the door
of it to the Gentile world. He was the principal figure in the history of
the early Christian Church, but was soon eclipsed by the overpowering
presence and zeal of Paul. Tradition, indeed, has something to tell of
him, but from it little of trustworthy can be gathered except that he
finished his career by martyrdom in the city of Rome. This Apostle is
represented in Christian art as an old man, bald-headed, with a flowing
beard, dressed in a white mantle, and holding a scroll in his hand, his
attributes being the keys, and a sword in symbol of his martyrdom.

PETER, THE FIRST EPISTLE OF, addressed especially to Jewish
Christians in certain churches of Asia Minor, the members of which were
suffering persecution at the hands of their adversaries as evil-doers;
was written to exhort them to rebut the charge by a life of simple
well-doing, and to comfort them under it with the promise of the return
of the Lord.

PETER, THE SECOND EPISTLE OF, addressed to all who anywhere bore the
Christian name; appears to have been written not long before his death to
counteract certain fatal forms of error, at once doctrinal and practical,