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The successors of Clovis inflicted one hundred lashes on the peasants who refused to destroy their idols; the crime of sacrificing to the demons was punished by the Anglo-Saxon laws with the heavier penalties of imprisonment and confiscation; and even the wise Alfred adopted, as an indispensable duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic institutions.

But once those endearments had been spoken, when once the presents had been divested of their paper wrappings porcelain representations of the Bambinos from Florence a marble statue of the Venus de Milo from Pisa an ornament in mosaic from Rome when once they had been set up, admired, paid for in kisses of gratitude, then Janet gave words to the questions that had been looking from her eyes.

Of old there was a law for the leprosy of a garment and of a house; yet, in spite of the stringency of that Mosaic law, the isolation, the purging with hyssop, and the cleansing by fire, St. Luke records: "There met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off; and they lifted up their voices and cried, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

A person, who seemed to be at his devotions, withdrew the veil for us, and we saw a Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by Domenichino, originally, I believe, painted in fresco in St. Peter's, but since transferred to canvas, and removed hither. Its place at St. Peter's is supplied by a mosaic copy.

The scenes of our life are like pictures done in rough mosaic. Looked at close, they produce no effect. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance off.

Wherever great skill and delicacy, on the artists' part were necessary, they seemed quite adequate to the occasion; but, after all, a mosaic of any celebrated picture is but a copy of a copy. The substance employed is a stone-paste, of innumerable different views, and in bits of various sizes, quantities of which were seen in cases along the whole series of rooms.

When, after much trying of temper, much exercise of patience, you had accomplished the task, there was a beautiful bit of mosaic work, a picture, a harmonious whole, lovely to look upon, something worthy of the admiring approbation of uncles and aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers. But the doing of it!

At first each different piece or colour in a geometric pattern was cut before firing to the shape required, and the many different pieces when coloured and fired were put together so as to form a regular mosaic.

The interior consists of a nave with double aisles, and is supported by fifty-two pillars, each fifteen feet in diameter, the summits of which are decked with canopied niches presenting statues in place of the customary capitals. The pavement is finished in marble and mosaic.

We learn from the Sacred Record, that the curse of slavery fell on the posterity of Ham in consequence of his dishonoring his aged father. Every Bible reader must have noted the severe punishment of children, under the Mosaic dispensation, for disobedience and disrespect to parents. It appears to have been classed amongst the worst of crimes, and death was the penalty.