HE rapid and marvellous success of the first preachers of Christianity has been a subject of surprise alike to friend and foe. At the time of our Lord's ascension, the disciples in Jerusalem, the very cradle of the faith, were gathered together in an upper room, "and the number of the names together were about an hundred and twenty." But scarcely more than a century afterwards, the Christian apologist, Justin Martyr, was able to write: "There exists not a people, whether Greek or Barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or of agriculture, whether they dwell under tents or wander about in covered waggons, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered up in the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things." We know that this success of his own word came from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. But we know also that he brings about his great purposes by human instrumentality; using, it is true, the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and things that are not to bring to Bought things that are, yet violating none of the Latural laws he himself has ordained, either in the world of matter or in that of mind.

In full conformity with these laws, he had prepared the ground for the reception of the grain of mustard-seed," and chosen in his divine wisdom the time of its planting. The special preparation of the Jewish nation need not here be dwelt upon, as we take for granted the reader's acquaintance with Scripture history. It may be well, however, briefly to describe the various classes to which the teachers of Christianity ad

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dressed themselves, in order to understand how far they were prepared to receive the faith. Besides the Jews of Palestine, who naturally were the most zealous for the laws of Moses and for their own traditions, there were the Jews of the Dispersion-the Hellenists or Grecians of the New Testament-who were scattered abroad through all the countries of the known world. These Hellenists, while they adopted the language, and in a measure the customs, of the places where they dwelt, continued to worship the God of their fathers, to keep the ceremonial law, and, when able, to attend the great feasts at the Temple. There was given them, in the providence of God, a very important work to do for his Church. They prepared the minds of multitudes of the heathen for the reception of the gospel. many places, thoughtful men had grown dissatisfied with the dreams and puerilities of paganism, and had begun to watch, with curiosity and interest, the proceedings of their Jewish fellowcitizens. They saw that these paid no homage to the idols of the popular faith, and that they did not recognize any of the systems of philosophy then in vogue. Upon inquiry, they failed not to learn that the Jews worshipped one supreme and invisible God, the Creator of heaven and earth; that they possessed sacred books, in which his will was declared; and that they expected the coming of a Messiah, a mighty Prince and Saviour. It often happened that the pagans who heard so much, desired to hear still more; that they borrowed the sacred books in their Greek translation (the Septuagint), and studied them in private; or else sought instruction from some of the Jewish rabbis. In either case they frequently became proselytes; so frequently indeed, that in

the days of the first emperors the Roman authors not seldom made it a subject of complaint. Seneca, for example, says of the Jews, that "the conquered have given laws to the conquerors." These proselytes to Judaism were therefore in a measure prepared for the reception of the gospel. By Jewish writers they were divided into two classes -proselytes of righteousness, who accepted and obeyed the law of Moses, ceremonial as well as moral; and proselytes of the gate, who worshipped Jehovah and renounced all communion with idols, but merely kept what were called "the seven precepts of Noah," without binding themselves to the observance of the Levitical law. The latter, often mentioned in Scripture as "devout men," men that feared God," were the most hopeful class to which the preachers of the gospel addressed themselves. They knew enough to feel desirous of knowing more; they had in many instances studied the Scriptures with great earnestness, and were, therefore, willing and anxious to be told of Him of whom "Moses in the law and the prophets did testify," and ready to receive him joyfully as their Saviour. On the other hand, the proselytes of righteousness too frequently imbibed the passionate prejudices of the Jews themselves, and were reluctant to believe that the "righteousness of the law" they had been at such pains to observe, formed no title to acceptance with Christ; though doubtless he had his chosen people also amongst them.

Both the Hellenic Jews, and the proselytes who attended the Temple service, were eminently useful in dispersing the knowledge of the Christian faith throughout the cities and countries where they dwelt. To them was probably owing the introduction of Christianity at a very early period into many places never visited by the apostles, or by regular evangelists. It also happened that the heathen, for a considerable time, confounded the Jews and Christians together, or considered Christianity merely a variety of Judaism; and as Judaism was a tolerated because a national religion, this toleration was at first tacitly extended to the infant Christian Church. Judaism thus formed a kind of calyx to protect the new faith, until the time arrived when it was able to unfold itself, and strong enough to endure the blasts of pagan persecution.

But that time was soon to come; for Christ was to be not only "the glory of his people Israel," but also "a light to lighten the Gentiles." Never before had the sublime idea dawned upon the minds of men, of a religion for the whole world-a religion which should unite men of every clime, language, and character, in a bond of universal brotherhood, founded upon allegiance to a common God and Saviour. The early opponents of Christianity treated this idea as a palpable absurdity, and something utterly impossible to realize in practice. This was, perhaps, from their point of view, only natural; for the religious systems of the ancient world were pre-eminently national institutions. They were bound up with the life, the honour, the prosperity of the State; and it was considered one of the first duties of a good citizen to worship and serve the gods of his country, the gods of his fathers. Celsus, the enemy of the Christians, only expressed what every pagan felt, when he said, speaking of religion, "It is right for every people to reverence their ancient laws, but to desert them is a crime."

Christianity corrected this overweening estimate of the State, by imparting a dignity and a value hitherto undreamt of to the individual. Eternal life and immortality were indeed brought to light by the gospel. to light by the gospel. The Christian believed, as none ever believed before, that every human being, however poor and mean, however simple and uneducated, was born to the solemn inheri tance of a personal immortality—an endless existence in happiness or in misery. He could therefore no longer regard man as a mere unit in the State; but, before and beyond all else, as a "living soul," created by the one supreme God, and answerable alone to him.

When the mighty internal force which such convictions imparted to Christianity was brought to bear against the old State religions of the pagan world, these religions were already decaying and waxing old. The gods of Greece and of, Rome had "lived their season out," and in great measure had lost their hold upon the minds and hearts of men. It was God's appointment that Christianity should come to a world unquiet, dissatisfied, mistrustful of the old, and eager for the new-to men whose minds were full of doubt, and whose hearts were aching for light, for

truth, for certainty, which no creed they professed, and no philosophy with which they were acquainted, could offer them. "Who will show us any good?" seemed to be the cry of thousands of anxious spirits, at the very time when He whom they knew not, but who was watching them in pitying love, by the revelation of his Son Jesus Christ lifted up the light of his countenance upon them, and it was day for evermore.

But although it is true that "that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away," it is also true that decay itself engenders new forms of life; and thus from the very decay of the old State religions of the civilized world there arose certain corrupt developments, which opposed themselves everywhere to the progress of the gospel. The educated pagans too often became shallow, sneering, callous-hearted sceptics, or votaries of a superficial worldly wisdom that bounded its hopes and fears to the present. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," is an argument which in all ages has found too ready a response in the human heart. Deeper natures meanwhile sought in various systems of philosophy something to satisfy their cravings. Sometimes they thought they found; but the god whom the lessons of the philosophers, or the researches of their own intellects revealed to them, was truly a god afar off, and not a god at hand. Moreover, he was a god who only manifested himself here and there to a few chosen spirits, and whom ordinary men were totally incapable of knowing. Hence the formation of a kind of "learned aristocracy," who looked down with indulgent contempt upon the religion of the common people, as quite good enough for the stupid and ignorant many, however it might be disbelieved and ridiculed in secret by the enlightened few. The intellectual pride which such habits of thought necessarily engendered, was of course highly unfavourable to the reception of Christianity.

But not less so was the gross superstition to which the uneducated masses generally abandoned themselves. We never cling more desperately to the outward symbols and accessories of our belief, than when we are conscious of a lurking unsoundness at its core. Fanaticism is often a token of incipient scepticism; and men are most furious against the hands that shake

their cherished idols, when they feel that those idols are already tottering on their thrones. The age of primitive Christianity was, for paganism, an age of inward rottenness but of outward splendour-an age of temples and of altars, of incense and of costly sacrifices. While therefore the philosophers made it a matter of contemptuous reproach to the Christians that they undertook to reveal God to all men, even to the uneducated"to wool-combers, leather-sellers, and mechanics" the superstition of the multitude vented itself in a reproach of an opposite kind. "Show us your God!" they cried, struck with uncomprehending astonishment at the spiritual character of the Christian worship. They thought that men who had no gods that could be seen or touched, that could have sacrifices offered to them, or incense burned before them, must of necessity be without gods at all—Atheists.

Thus the hostility both of the learned and of the unlearned, of the enlightened few and of the superstitious many, was awakened against Christianity. That the State at length lent to this hostility the powerful sanction of law, was owing chiefly to the cause already hinted at; the new faith appeared in the light of a departure from the authorized State religion-a political crime rather than a speculative error.

While therefore the opposition aroused was not strong enough to prevent the progress of Christianity, still less to destroy it, yet was it sufficiently strong to submit it, once and again, to the ordeal of a fiery persecution, and thus to become the occasion of its grandest triumphs. Persecution drew out and exemplified in action the true power of Christianity. Deprived of all adventitious aid, but at the same time divested of nearly all that could interfere with her free action, the faith that worketh by love was thus, as it were, led into the arena, and exposed to the assaults of every enemy the ancient world could bring against her. The whole force of an empire-nay, of the empire that ruled the world, and ruled it mainly by asserting the pre-eminent majesty of Law-grappled with this unarmed defenceless Faith in a struggle for life or death. It was the "beast dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, that had great iron teeth, and devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the

residue with his feet," that found at last an opponent, who without sword or spear or battleaxe, overthrew him on his own ground, and won by meek endurance a more glorious victory than arms have ever gained.

The first persecution of the Christians sanctioned by the governing power of the Roman empire, was that of the infamous Nero, whose name is even yet a curse and a reproach amongst men. It is said that the tyrant, in the wantonness of cruelty, set fire to his own capital; and that ten out of the fourteen regions into which the city was divided were reduced to ashes in the conflagration. But there were limits beyond which even Cæsar might not venture with impunity; and becoming alarmed at the consequences of his own reckless cruelty, he desired to transfer the odium of having occasioned the fire to the innocent Christians, who must by that time have been very numerous in the city. Tacitus tells us they were unpopular amongst their fellow-citizens as the followers of an "unsocial superstition;" and it is scarcely surprising that this character should attach to them, as there were few transactions of civil or social life in which they could join without defiling themselves in some way or other with the idolatry they had engaged to renounce. But the horrible cruelties which were now, by the tyrant's order, perpetrated upon them, changed this general feeling of dislike into pity for their sufferings-sufferings which even the heathen must have known were undeserved. Many were put to death in various ways; some of these innocent victims being covered with the skins of wild beasts and exposed to be torn by dogs, while others were smeared with pitch and burned as torches

and Paul, and who is supposed to have suffered martyrdom in this persecution. There is no evidence that Nero published any general edict against the Christians; still it is probable that the cruel scenes enacted in the capital were in some measure reproduced in those parts of the provinces where the governors or the people were hostile to the faith. We gain a more vivid conception of the horrors of this first pagan persecution through the impression it produced on the minds of the Christian community. When about four years after its commencement it was brought to a close by the death of the tyrant, imaginations disordered by terror proved unable to realize the fact, and a legend arose that Nero had only retired beyond the Euphrates, whence he would return in the character of Antichrist to resume and to exceed his former cruelties.

None of the five emperors who succeeded him persecuted the Christians; but an event of considerable importance, bearing on their history, took place in the reign of Vespasian. This was the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, 77 A.D. Most readers are acquainted with the horrors that accompanied this final outpouring of Jehovah's indignation upon his rebellious and impenitent people. They may be read at large in the history of Josephus, who was an eye-witness of what be described; and well indeed might he say that "it was a happiness for those who died before they heard and saw miseries like these." It is believed, however, that not one of the followers of Christ was within the city when it was besieged by the Romans. Their Master's warning had not been in vain; when they saw Jerusalem compassed about with armies, they knew that the desolation thereof was nigh, and saved themselves by a

We long for personal anecdotes to bear witness to the faith that no doubt upheld the suffering Christians during this, as during so many later and no less agonizing seasons of trial; but the only martyr names which Nero's persecution appears to have bequeathed to us are the two illustrious ones already mentioned, those of the apostles Peter and Paul. Perhaps we may also add that of Linus, to whose care the Roman church is said to have been entrusted by Peter

the rest of their nation. They took refuge in the mountain-town of Pella, beyond the Jordan, where they remained until the end of the war. They afterwards returned to their ruined home, and the Christian church was re-established there under the guidance of Simeon, the relative of our Lord and the brother of James the Just. The destruction of the Holy City, however, did for them what they could scarcely have accomplished for themselves. It loosened their hold upon the ceremonial observances of the Jewish law, and