he says, "We cannot regard the imprisonment of our brethren but as our own, nor their sufferings but as ours, since we are united with them in one body, and not only love, but a peculiar religious interest must impel and confirm us in procuring the freedom of brethren who are members of our body. For the apostle says, 'Know ye not, that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?' (1 Cor. iii. 16); therefore if love were not sufficient to impel us to help our brethren, we ought to reflect that the temples of God are in captivity, and these temples of God must not remain in it any longer through our delay; we must with all our might seek by our obedience to gain the approbation of Christ our judge, our Lord and God. For the Apostle Paul says, 'As many of you as are baptized have put on Christ:' therefore in our captive brethren we must see that Christ who has rescued us from the danger of captivity, who has redeemed us from the danger of death. We must feel ourselves compelled to free them from the hands of barbarians who has freed us from Satan's grasp, and who now dwells and abides in us; we must with a small sum of money ransom Him who has ransomed us by his cross and blood, and who has permitted this misfortune to happen, in order to prove our faith, whether every one of us will do for others what he would have wished for himself, had he fallen into the hands of barbarians." He adds, "We wish, indeed, that nothing like this may happen in future; but yet should any thing of the kind occur again to try the love of our hearts, and to test our faith, do not delay to inform us of it by another epistle; since you may be satisfied that our whole church prays to God that it may not happen again, but if it should occur, that they will help you cheerfully and abundantly."

CHAPTER XII.

GENERAL PHILANTHROPY OF CHRISTIANS.

ALTHOUGH the heathen frequently charged the Christians with misanthropy, because they would not imitate the conduct of the world, and sometimes because they showed some

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semblance of it by a too rude but easily explicable opposition to the world, arising from the state of the development of the Christian life at that period, yet the principle of the universal love of mankind and of enemies was always expressed by the Christian church. The love of enemies especially was not regarded as a single moral precept of Christianity, but was a necessary result of the total Christian faith and consciousness, of faith in the Redeemer, who died for his enemies, and of a love that expelled everything selfish. Whenever they met for worship Christians prayed for the conversion of all men, that all men might attain salvation by the reception and faithful following of the doctrine of Christ. Also the heathen poor received rich gifts from the Christian church. When a narrow-hearted patriotism, which often was only a more refined and diffused selfishness, had suppressed among the ancients the general feelings of humanity, and many noble persons among the Romans helped to furnish those cruel spectacles of a bloodthirsty people-the gladiatorial shows the voice of the Christian church was from the first raised against them with the greatest abhorrence. Whoever frequented those spectacles was excluded from the communion of the church.

In the year 254 a desolating epidemic raged throughout a great part of the Roman empire, and especially in Northern Africa. The heathen at Carthage did not venture to attend the sick for fear of infection; the infected were thrown out into the streets, half dead. Corpses were left lying in heaps, and threatened a general plague, by tainting the atmosphere. A short time before, the Christians had suffered a bloody persecution; and even this desolating epidemic occasioned new attacks upon them, as if the gods in their wrath had made such judgments depend on their enemies, the Christians. But Cyprian knew that it became Christians, by well-doing, to heap the burning coals of shame on the heads of their enemies. He assembled his church, and said to them, "If we merely show kindness to our own people, we do no more than publicans and heathens; as genuine Christians we must overcome evil by good, love our enemies as our Lord exhorts us, and pray for our persecutors. Since we are born of God, we must show ourselves worthy of our origin by imitating our Father's goodness."

The Christians answered this appeal by dividing the work among them according to their various situations and abilities Some gave money, others their personal labour, and in a short time the dead received burial, and Carthage was rescued from the danger of a general pestilence.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CHRISTIANS UNDER PERSECUTION.

It is indeed no proof of the divine origin and truth of a conviction that it imparts power to contemn death; the apathy of stupidity, or an artificial suppression of natural feeling, can do this. The intoxication of fanaticism, which does not allow men to reflect, but hurries them blindly on in a state of insensibility, may produce such an effect. Moreover, the nature of man, as partaking of the divine, is susceptible of an enthusiasm for the objects of a higher world; and this susceptibility may be led astray by deceptive influences. But fanaticism, like all elevation of the mental powers proceeding from over-excitement, in its very nature is incapable of always keeping at the same height. It begins violently, and is only heated and roused by the opposition it meets with; but it gradually loses its elasticity; and this takes place sooner if it meets with no resistance from without, but is left for a while to itself. But we see Christianity conflicting for three centuries, and overcoming death with the same enthusiasm. After a long interval of rest, during which it certainly sank in some measure into careless security and indolent worldliness (as for the greater part of the time from Heliogabalus to Trajan Decius, 218-249, from Gallienus to the beginning of the Diocletian persecution, 268-303), yet we see Christianity enter with fresh power on the conflict, which only served to separate nominal Christians, who had found their way into the church in great numbers during

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peaceful times, from those who felt the vital power of Christianity. Not only the most excruciating tortures by which it was attempted to extort a denial of their faith from Christians could not shake their stedfastness, supported as it was by divine power; nor even could the protracted sufferings of close imprisonment, with hunger and thirst, nor toilsome, difficult, unwonted labours in the mines, weary out a patience which was maintained by their faith. The representations also of benevolent magistrates to the effect that they might retain their peculiar faith, provided they performed the outward ceremonies prescribed by the laws-these representations, which were so adapted by their sophistry as they were agreeable to the flesh to pacify their consciences-and all the persuasions of dear friends and relatives, the entreaties and tears of beloved fathers, mothers, and children, could not turn the tender hearts of Christians from the path of obedience to the gospel; they endured the severest conflict, not only the conflict with the fear of death as presented to the senses, but that which is still more trying, the conflict with those tender and deeply-implanted feelings in the moral nature of man, which Christianity by no means suppresses, but, as it does in reference to all that is purely human, exalts, refines, and ennobles. They were victorious in this conflict, because the words of the Saviour were deeply impressed on their hearts: "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Fanaticism, like a paroxysm of fever, hurries men along, and does not allow the sense of human weakness to spring up. Trust in God's power-a peaceful, sober devotedness to God, with a sense of human weakness-fasting, watching, and praying, lest we fall into temptation-experiencing the truth of Christ's words, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," and by the Spirit of the glorified Son of Man overcoming the opposition of the weak flesh, to say with the Apostle Paul, "When I am weak, then am I strong;"-sentiments and thoughts like these were the characteristics of the Christian martyr, as will be apparent from the examples which will come under our notice. Tertullian contrasts that patient resignation which he delineates in a separate treatise as the soul of the Christian life, with that artificial equanimity which is founded on an unfeeling

stupidity. He thus represents this Christian virtue:* "She perfects martyrdom, she consoles the poor, she teaches moderation to the rich; she does not let the weak overstrain themselves, she does not consume the strength of the strong; she rejoices the believer, she allures the heathen, she makes the slave well-pleasing to his master, and his master to God; she is loved in a boy, is praised in a youth, is honoured in the aged, is beautiful in every sex, in every age. Let us try to form an image of her. Her countenance is tranquil and placid; her forehead smooth, and marked by no wrinkles of sorrow or anger; her eyebrows cheerfully unknit; her eyes directed downwards in humility, not in grief; a complexion such as belongs to the unanxious and the innocent... Where God is, there is his foster-daughter. Wherever, therefore, the Spirit of God descends, this divine patience is his inseparable companion. Can the Spirit abide where she does not at the same time find admission? Without his companion and handmaid he will always and everywhere be grieved. This is the nature, these are the acts of heavenly and genuine, that is, of Christian patience."

There were some persons who, carried away by the ardour of their zeal for the profession of the gospel, declared themselves to be Christians voluntarily before the heathen magis

* [Patientia] fidem munit, pacem gubernat, dilectionem adjuvat, humilitatem instruit, poenitentiam exspectat, exomologesin assignat, carnem regit, spiritum servat, linguam frenat, manum continet, tentationes inculcat, scandala pellit, martyria consummat, pauperem consolatur, divitem temperat, infirmum non extendit, valentem non consumit, fidelem delectat, gentilem invitat; servum domino, dominum Deo commendat, feminam exornat, virum approbat; amatur in puero, laudatur in juvene, suspicitur in sene; in omni sexu, in omni ætate formosa est. Age jam sis et effigiem habitumque ejus comprehendamus. Vultis illi tranquillus et placidus frons pura, nulla mororis aut iræ rugositate contracta; remissa æque in lætum modum supercilia, oculis humilitate, non infelicitate dejectis; os taciturnitatis honore signatum; color qualis securis et innoxiis; motus frequens capitis in diabolum et minax visus; cæterum amictus circum pectora candidus, et corpori impressus, ut qui nec inflatur nec inquietatur. Sedet enim in throno spiritus ejus mitissimi et mansuetissimi, qui non turbine glomeratur, non nubilo livet, sed est tenerse severitatis, apertus et simplex, quem tertio vidit Helias. Nam ubi Deus, ibidem et alumna ejus, patientia scilicet. Cum ergo Spiritus Dei descendit, individua patientia comitatur eum.-Tertull. de Patientia, § 15.