CHRISTIANIA (130), the capital of Norway, romantically situated at the head of Christiania Fiord; the residence of the king and the seat of government; a manufacturing and trading city, but it is blocked up against traffic for four months in the year.

CHRISTIANITY, BELIEF (q. v.) that there is in Christ, as in no other, from first to last a living incarnation, a flesh and blood embodiment, for salvation of the ever-living spirit of the ever-living God and Father of man, and except that by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, that is, except by participating in His divine-human life, or except in His spirit, there is no assurance of life everlasting to any man; but perhaps it has never been defined all round with greater brevity and precision than it is by Ruskin in his “Praeterita,” under the impression that the time is come when one should say a firm word concerning it:  “The total meaning of it,” he says, “was, and is, that the God who made earth and its creatures, took, at a certain time upon the earth, the flesh and form of man; in that flesh sustained the pain and died the death of the creature He had made; rose again after death into glorious human life, and when the date of the human race is ended, will return in visible human form, and render to every mail according to his work. Christianity is the belief in, and love of, God thus manifested.  Anything less than this,” he adds, “the mere acceptance of the sayings of Christ, or assertion of any less than divine power in His Being, may be, for aught I know, enough for virtue, peace, and safety; but they do not make people Christians, or enable them to understand the heart of the simplest believer in the old doctrine.”

CHRISTIANSAND (12), a town and seaport in the extreme S. of Norway, with a considerable trade.

CHRISTIE, WILLIAM HENRY MAHONEY, astronomer-royal, born at Woolwich, of Trinity College, Cambridge; author of “Manual of Elementary Astronomy”; b. 1845.

CHRISTINA, queen of Sweden, daughter and only child of Gustavus Adolphus; received a masculine education, and was trained in manly exercises; governed the country well, and filled her court with learned men, but by-and-by her royal duties becoming irksome to her, she declared her cousin as her successor, resigned the throne, and turned Catholic; her cousin dying, she claimed back her crown, but her subjects would not now have her; she stayed for a time in France, but was obliged to leave; retired to Rome, where she spent 20 years of her life engaged in scientific and artistic studies, and died (1628-1689).

CHRISTINA, MARIA, daughter of Francis I. of Naples, and wife of Ferdinand VII. of Spain, on whose death she acted for four years as regent, during the infancy of her daughter Isabella (1806-1878).

CHRISTISON, SIR ROBERT, toxicologist, born at Edinburgh, and professor, first of Medical Jurisprudence and then of Materia Medica, in his native city; wrote a “Treatise on Poison,” a standard work (1797-1882).