incongruity of such an institution was widely felt; but still it
continued. At last an Eastern monk, moved only by report,
journeyed a long way to protest against the impiety. With noble
enthusiasm he leaped into the arena, where the battle raged, in
order to separate the combatants. He was unsuccessful, and paid
with life the penalty of his humanity. [Footnote: St. Telemachus,
A. D. 401. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed.
Milman, (London, 1846,) Ch. XXX., Vol. III. p. 70. Smith, Dict.
Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Myth., art. TELEMACHUS.] But the martyr
triumphed where the monk had failed. Shortly afterwards, the
Emperor Honorius, by solemn decree, put an end to this horrid
custom. "The first Christian Emperor," says Gibbon, "may claim the
honor of the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of
shedding human blood." [Footnote: Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, _ubi supra_.] Our amphitheatre is larger than that of
Rome; but it witnesses scenes not less revolting; nor need any
monk journey a long way to protest against the impiety. That
protest can be uttered by every one here at home. We are all
spectators; and since by human craft the civilized world has
become one mighty Colosseum, with place for everybody, may we not
insist that the bloody games by which it is yet polluted shall
cease, and that, instead of mutual-murdering gladiators filling
the near-brought scene with death, there shall be a harmonious
people, of different nations, but one fellowship, vying together
only in works of industry and art, inspired and exalted by a
divine beneficence?

In presenting this picture I exaggerate nothing. How feeble is
language to depict the stupendous barbarism! How small by its side
the bloody games which degraded ancient Rome! How pygmy the one,