ays, in his fourth
book on Italy, that Baldwin, second king of Jerusalem, captured in 1101,
with the assistance of the Genoese, the town of Cesarea in Syria, and
amongst the spoils taken by his allies was a vessel or cup of emerald,
which was considered to have been made use of by Jesus Christ at his last
supper. "Therefore,"--these are his own words,--"this cup is even now
devoutly preserved in the town of Genoa."

According to this account, our Lord must have had a splendid service on
that occasion; for there would be as little propriety in drinking from
such a costly vessel without having the rest of the service of a similar
description, as there is in some Popish pictures where the Virgin Mary is
represented as a woman with her hair hanging over her shoulders, dressed
in a gown of cloth of gold, and riding on a donkey which Joseph leads by
the halter. We recommend our readers to consider well the Gospel texts
relating to this subject.

The case of the dish upon which the paschal lamb was placed is still
worse, for it is to be found at Rome, at Genoa, and at Arles. If these
holy relics be genuine, the customs of that time must have been quite
different from ours, because, instead of changing viands as we now do, the
dishes were changed for the same food!

The same may be said of the towel with which Jesus Christ wiped the feet
of the apostles, after having washed them; there is one at Rome at the
Lateran, one at Aix-la-Chapelle, and one at St Corneille of Compiegne,
with the print of the foot of Judas. Some of these must be false.

But we will leave the contending parties to fight out their own battles,
until one of them shall establish the reality of his case. It appears to
me, however, that trying to make people believe that a towel which Jesus
Christ had left in the place where it was used, had in several hundred
years afterwards found its way into Germany and Italy, is nothing better
than a gross imposture.

I nearly forgot to mention the bread with which five thousand persons were
miraculously fed in the desert, and of which a bit is shown at Rome, and
another piece at Salvatierra in Spain.

The Scripture says that a portion of manna was preserved in remembrance of
God having miraculously fed his people in the desert; but the Gospel does
not say a word respecting the preservation of the fragments of the five
loaves for a similar purpose; the subject is not mentioned in any ancient
history, nor does any ecc