and breakwater below the wall.

THE GALVESTON SEAWALL. Showing first few sections built to break the waves and frame work required to shape same.

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG.

BY GEORGE LUDINGTON WEED.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

ISLAND OF MALTA-"TOWARD ROME"-IN PRISON.

The Certain Island-The Islanders-Paul bitten by a Viper-Mistaken for a GodMinistry of Healing-Castor and Pollux"-Syracuse-Rhegium-Buried Fires and Buried Cities-Puteoli-Appian Way-Appii Forum-Three Taverns -Approach to the City-Via Sacra-The Forum-Julius and Burrus-Prison Life-Roman Guards-Friends and Helpers-Liberty-Missionary Journeys.

On reaching land, it was found that the island was Melita, now called Malta. It was then uncultivated and covered with forests. It had not the dense population of today. The people were called barbarians, but they were better than many such so-called now. They showed their kindly spirit and welcome to the ship's company by building a fire to relieve the discomfort and suffering from rain and cold. That fire will never be forgotten. It is well remembered by every child who reads or hears the story of Paul's shipwreck. He whose voice bade his companions to be of good cheer on the sea, did what he could to make them so on the land. Ready to do his part, or even more, for the comfort of all, he gathered sticks of wood and placed them on the fire. Hidden among them was a torpid viper, which was revived by the heat. Its first act was to fasten itself on his hand, piercing it with its poisonous fangs. The rude islanders were filled with horror. They well knew the usual effects of a viper's sting. They watched

Copyright, 1899, by George W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia.

for the immediate swelling of his arm and other signs of poison throughout his body, which would end in death. They believed him to be guilty of murder or some other great crime, and that the viper was an instrument of punishment even though he had escaped the dangers of the sea. But when he shook it off from his arm into the fire, and they saw it had done him no harm, they thought, as had the people in Lystra, that he was a god, and that neither sea nor viper could destroy him. We feel sure that he at once denied this and spoke of the true God as he did to the Lystrians who were ready to render him idolatrous worship.

Paul did great and many wonders in the name of Him who had protected him from death. Publius was governor of the island. For three days he cared for the shipwrecked strangers. His father was suffering from a terrible disease. Paul visited him, and put his hands upon him, praying to God, who healed him. The wonderful news quickly spread throughout the island. Other sick came to him and were healed. In return for all this the islanders did what they could for the comfort of Paul and his companions during the three months of their stay, and supplied comforts and needs for the continued journey.

Again they sailed for Italy. Again the Apostle of Jesus Christ was carried in a ship named after heathen divinities, Castro and Pollux, reminding him of idolatry wherever he went. Landing at Syracuse on the island of Sicily, where the vessel tarried three days, we may suppose Julius allowed Paul to go ashore as he had at Sidon. In the mixed population he would find opportunity to preach the gospel, "to the Jew first and also to the Gentile;" and so founding, as tradition tells us, the first Sicilian church.

An unfavorable breeze directed his ship's course to Rhegium, a city whose imagined protectors were the gods after whom the ship was named. Paul sailed on the bay of Naples. then as now noted as one of the most beautiful of earthly scenes. Vesuvius, as quiet as the day was calm, was decked with its vines of green. No one thought of the hidden fires beneath it that would soon destroy the fair but wicked cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum at its base, as those from heaven destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Little did Paul or the wife of Felix, who had so lately met in Cæsa

rea, think that she and her child would perish together in the awful catastrophe.

As the Castro and Pollux landed at Puteoli, among the idlers and merchants crowding the pier, were Christians, the most cheering sight to Paul, desiring him to tarry seven days. Italian Christians had long looked for a visit from the apostle, but not in chains. The news found a rapid way to Rome, where was formed a plan to give him a joyous welcome even before his eyes beheld the city.

The Appian Way was the great road leading to Rome. Along it Paul walked, an old man, a prisoner led by a chain, shattered by years of labor and suffering, just escaped from shipwreck, not knowing what trials of body and spirit he had yet to endure. No marvel if he who had been strength to others on the sea, was exhausted, weak and despondent on the land. He passed through villages of which only fragments of pavements and tombs remain; and by vine-clad hills and water courses lined with willows. Wearily he crossed the Pontine Marshes. He reached Appii Forum, then known as the meeting-place of vulgar crowds; but now remembered for a meeting of another kind. Hither Christians from Rome, on hearing of his coming, hastened forty miles to greet him. Among them were doubtless some he had known in the far east, little dreaming that they would one day meet him in circumstances so changed-their loved apostle in bonds. Ten miles further on, at a place called Three Taverns, he met another company waiting to welcome and honor him, "whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage." With a lighter heart he went the remaining seventeen miles of his journey.

At last from a summit he gained an extensive view-of towns and villas on neighboring hills; of gardens and acqueducts; of roads from every direction meeting in a common center-the great city of Rome. From that summit it was only a confused mass of buildings; for he could not distinguish the streets and open squares, nor hovels, from palaces, theaters, colonnades, baths and temples.

As he approached the city he met the signs of busy life-the varied costumes of many nations, and of the different classes of Romans, laborers, beggars and soldiers; wayfarers and horsemen; the gay and rich in palanquins carried by men, and those in car