he had not been saved by the power of God from the disgrace of crucifixion, was regarded everywhere as a perfect answer to all his claims. Such was the be

ginning of the propagation of the gospel. These were the desperate circumstances in which the unfriended, unprotected, ridiculed apostles were to set up their banner. What could they do?

10. Consider the mode they adopted. They sought no favor from worldly influence; courted no human indulgence; waited for no earthly approbation; paid as little deference to rank, or wealth, or human learning, as to poverty and meanness. They spoke as men having authority-as ambassadors commissioned from a throne, and sustained by a power before which they had a right to demand that priests and philosophers and kings should submit. "Not with enticing words of man's wisdom," did they seek to advance their cause, but in simple reliance upon "the demonstration of the Spirit." Instead of selecting such doctrines as would best conciliate their hearers, and concealing the rest, they fixed their preaching most emphatically on what they knew was the special topic of derision and mockery both to Jew and Greek, glorying in nothing save in the cross of Christ. Instead of seeking retired and ignorant people as the subjects of their efforts; instead of a double doctrine, as the philosophers had-one thing for the world, another for their disciples, a part for the novice, the whole only for the initiated-they kept back nothing anywhere, declaring boldly the whole gospel in the most public places and before the greatest enemies.

"Jesus and the resurrection" were preached as freely to Epicureans and Stoics in Athens, as to publicans and sinners in Jerusalem. Instead of accommodating their declarations in any degree to the vainglorious and vicious characters of those whom they addressed, they declared the wrath of God to be "revealed from heaven against all ungodlienss and unrighteousness of men." To every soul that would be a Christian, they issued the requirement, "depart from iniquity," "crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts," and be willing to be esteemed a fool and persecuted to death for Christ's sake. Such was the mode selected by these powerless Galileans, by which to subdue the fierce opposition of the proud, self-righteous Jews, and to make Christians out of Greeks and Romans, alike devoted to degrading vices and puffed up with the conceit of superior wisdom..

11. Now let us see in what manner the attempt to propagate Christianity was received. It was met everywhere by the most strenuous hostility, and the fiercest persecution. From the first discourse of the apostles, down to the three hundred and fifth year of the Christian era, persecution never entirely ceased, while its more public and general onsets followed one another in such close succession that the church had hardly time to bury her dead before she was called to prepare more candidates, by thousands at a time, for the tortures and triumphs of martyrdom. The preaching of the apostles began at Jerusalem, and there also persecution began. Saul hunted Christians with the appetite of a bloodhound. Stephen was the

first victim. Soon the brethren were scattered far and wide by the fury of the storm. James was slain with the sword; Peter imprisoned for execution; Paul scourged and stoned, and pursued so continually, that in every city bonds and afflictions awaited him. Whatever Jewish hate, goaded on by a jealous priesthood, could do, was put in requisition to crush the cause. All the devices that Roman governors, seconded by the superstitions and passions of the several nations of heathenism, could employ, were united in the one business of driving back the advancing cause of Christ. His disciples were calumniated as atheists, enemies of man, murderers and devourers of their own children, and as guilty of the most loathsome and horrible practices. Instruments of torture were exhausted. Jews and Gentiles, soldiers, slaves, governors, and emperors racked their ingenuity to find out new ways of tempting Christians to unfaithfulness; and when they were steadfast, of increasing their agonies without hastening their death. Every province and city and village was a scene of martyrdom. The great principle of the ruling powers was, that this "superstition," as they called it, must at all hazards be put down. "In a short time, the punishments by death were so common, that, as related by the writers of those times, no famine, pestilence, or war ever consumed more men at a time." The edict of

* "The Atheists," was the universal name for Christians. To the charge of dire hostility to all religion, was added that of combined rebellion against all law and all mankind. "Irreligiosi in Cæsares; hostes Cæsarum; hostes populi Romani," was their universal character among their enemies.

Trajan, commanding the presidents to inflict capital punishment on all who would not renounce Christianity, was never abrogated while heathenism reigned in Rome.* What persecution was in the heart of the empire, it was also in Africa, Persia, Arabia, Capadocia, Mesopotamia, Nicomedia, Phrygia, and in almost every place where the Christian name was known. "Those who suffered for the cause of Christ, men, women, youths of both sexes, were so numerous as to be estimated only in the mass." "In torments they stood stronger than their tormentors; their bruised and mangled limbs proving too hard for the instruments with which their flesh was racked and pulled from them: the blows, however often repeated, could not conquer their impregnable faith, even though they not only sliced and tore off the flesh, but raked into their very bowels." Such is the description given by one of those who thus endured to the end. The strong language in the epistle to the Hebrews is eminently applicable. Some "were tortured, not accepting deliverance; and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins, and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented: they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."

Christians were often the victims of popular fury,

* Lardner, vol. 4, p. 300.

+ Cyprian.

Heb. 11: 35-38.

as well as of public edicts and imperial authority. Every odious slander was propagated against them for the purpose of instigating the rage of the populace. The evidence of abject slaves or of persons forced by torture to testify as an incensed community desired, was used to justify the most dreadful explosions of vulgar hate. Did a drought occur? It was a proverbial explanation, that "if God refused rain, the Christians were in fault." Did the Nile refuse its annual irrigation, or the Tiber overflow its banks? Did earthquake, or famine, or any other public calamity excite the popular mind? A ready cause was in every mouth-the anger of the gods on account of the increase of Christianity! A ready sacrifice to propitiate the offended deities was immediately resorted to the slaughter of the Christians. How the better informed of society endeavored to stimulate the mob to these hecatombs of innocent victims, may be judged from the fact that "Porphyry; a man who wished to be accounted a philosopher, found a cause for the inveteracy of an infectious and desolating sickness in this, that Esculapius could not exert any effectual influence on the earth in consequence of the prevalence of Christianity !"*

Such, then, were the obstacles which opposed the propagation of the gospel. Who, in anticipating them, must not have said, "If this cause be of man, it must come to naught?" Either it must die a natural death in the obscurity of its birth, or be torn to pieces at the first onset of its foes; or else Neander's Ch. Hist.

*