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 and curious hangings of the same length, wrought with purple, velvet, scarlet and silk. All the fabric was so exquisite and rich, that none could imagine and workmanship to be wanted, for it was all covered with massy plates of gold, which astonished the beholders; the tops was also set with rods of gold, sharp at the ends, lest birds should sit thereon, and defile the holy place.

Our Saviour was born in the year of that world 4004, and in the 43d year of Augustus Cæsar many remarkable things were seen in the heavens, which caused the wise men to conclude, that some more than ordinary person would appear upon the earth, and the learned though it to be Augustus Cæsar, who then reigned prosperously: And others thought it to be whom the prophet Isaiah speaks of, that should have the government on his shoulders, even the Saviour of the world, whom the Evangelists mention the angels declared to the shepherds, and the star directed the wise men of the east to find out the place of his birth. So that,

At Christ's birth the temple of Rome, dedicated to the God Pan, fell to the earth, and when it was built the Romans addressed to the oracle Apollo to know how long it should endure, who answered, Till a virgin should bring forth a son, which they judged impossible, therefore they believed that their temple should last eternally.

That night that Christ was born, there appeared in Spain at midnight, a cloud with so great a light, that it seemed like mid-day. St. Jerome writes that when the virgin fled with her son into Egypt, that all the images of the gods tumbled from their altars to the very ground; and that the oracles or answers,