'a
figure of things to come.' How exceedingly minute, too, the
description of the temple! How very particular the narrative of its
dedication! The prayer of Solomon, Heaven-inspired for the occasion,
forms an impressive chapter in the sacred record, that addresses
itself to all time. But when the old state of things had passed
away,--when the material was relinquished for the spiritual, the
shadow for the substance, the type for the antitype,--we hear no
more of places of worship to which an intrinsic holiness attached,
or of imposing rites of dedication. Not in edifices deemed sacred was
the gospel promulgated, so long as the gospel remained pure, but in
'hired houses' and 'upper rooms,' or 'river-sides, where prayer was
wont to be made,' in chambers on the 'third loft,' often in the
streets, often in the market-place, in the fields and by solitary
waysides, on shipboard and by the sea-shore, 'in the midst of Mars
Hill' at Athens, and, when persecution began to darken, amid the deep
gloom of the sepulchral caverns of Rome. The time had evidently
come, referred to by the Saviour, when neither in the temple at
Jerusalem, nor on the mountain deemed sacred by the Samaritans, was
the Father to be worshipped; but all over the world, 'in spirit and
in truth.' Until Christianity had become corrupt, we do not hear
even of ornate churches, far less of Christian altars, of an order of
Christian priests, of the will-worship of consecration, or of the
presumed holiness of insensate matter,--all unauthorized additions of
man's making to a religion fast sinking at the time under a load of
human inventions,--additions which were in no degree the more
sacred, because filched, amid the darkness of superstition and error,
from the abrogated Mosaic dispensation. The following is, we
believe, the first notice of _fine_ Christian churches which occurs
in history;--we quote from the ecclesiastical work of Dr. Welsh,
and deem the passage a significant one:--'From the beginning of the
reign of Gallienus till the nineteenth year of Diocletian,' says the
historian, 'the external tranquillity of the Church suffered no
general interruption. The Christians, with partial exceptions, were
allowed the free exercise of their religion. Under Diocletian open
profession of the new faith was made even in the imperial household;
nor did it prove a barrier to the highest honours and employments.
In this state of affairs the condition of the Church seemed in