hibiting

results.

voice of Christian Apologists, by the unwilling witness of adversaries,' and still more convincingly by institutions and social and moral changes which remain as monuments of the influence of nascent Christianity. Testimonies to the active moral force but exof the new Religion abound, indeed, in the earlier moral Fathers. Virtues, hitherto little, if at all, recognized, now made rudimentary graces; passive endurance; forgiveness of injuries; resignation under calamity, not as a necessity, but as a duty of the human spirit; humility and meekness; benevolent unselfish effort replacing a narrow Instances. Egoism; fortitude under pain and death for the cause of belief; a sense of sin, not as an outward offence, but as an inward stain; a strengthened

3

1 As Epictetus, M. Aurelius, Julian. Cf. Lucian, d. Mort. Pereg., XIII. 2 E. g. Justin M., Apol., I. xiv. xxv.; II. xii. Dial. c. Tr., 110, 119, 131. Tertullian, Apol., xxxix. Minuc. F., c. ix. Lactant., D. Inst., III. 26; V. 18. Origen, c. C'els., I. 67. See the temperate statements of Gieseler, I. 298, and Robertson, C. H., I. 274. Compare some vivid remarks of Mr. Allies, Formation of Christianity, pp. 269, 270: "The Christian faith had laid its hand on the individual man," &c.

3 In striking contrast, therefore, to the Mahometan virtue of submission, perhaps implied in the name "Islam." In Phil. Pos., IV. 190, Comte coldly analyzes this quality, which he thinks only compatible with the acceptance of laws of Nature: “Quant à la résignation religieuse et surtout Chrétienne elle n'est, à vrai dire, malgré tant d'emphatiques éloges qu'une prudente temporisation qui fait supporter les malheurs présents en vue d'une ineffable félicité ultérieure."

"Fecerunt itaque civitates duas amores duo, terrenam scilicet amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei, cœlestem vero amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui."-August., Civ. D., XXIV. xxviii. "Le principe qui dominait l'antiquité était l'egoïsme du plus fort, tantôt celui de l'État, tantôt celui de l'individu. La personnalité de l'homme, sa liberté, ses droits naturels, étaient méconnus."-Schmidt, Essai, p. 116.

conviction of the freedom and spirituality of the human will; conversion from habits of vice, sudden, yet lasting; the consolations of faith and prayer as the outpouring of the soul to its Redeemer; the renovation of domestic virtues and proprieties, impaired by the vices of Roman society and the evil effects of slavery; the duty of almsgiving and active charity; the recognition of the rights of conscience and of religious freedom; the severance of spiritual from political obligation; a higher estimate of the value of human life; the sense of a real brotherhood among mankind, involving religious equality with slaves; a moral ideal suited to high and low; the replacement of hereditary priesthoods by common religious functions; an operative faith in the reality of another world; these and other kindred ideas, pregnant with fruitful effects, bore witness to the power and originality of the Faith of Christ in regenerating the heart of man, when first it broke, like the light of morning, on the world,3 as upon men awakened

"Ad hanc partem (sc. beneficentiæ) philosophorum nulla præcepta sunt."-Lactant., D. Inst., VI. x.

2 Comp. Archdeacon Lee's Lectt. on Eccles. Hist., pp. 24-29; and on the operation of the Christian doctrines, Merivale, Lectt. pp. 155, 156. On the general services of Christianity at this epoch, Ozanam, Civilis., I. c. i. 3 ὥσπερ οἱ τὸν ὕπνον ἀποσεισάμενοι εὐθέως ἐγρηγόρασαν.—Clem. Alex., Pad., I. vi. § 28. Mr. Mill on Liberty, p. 22, has some disparaging remarks on the ease with which Christian precepts may be acquiesced in without their gaining a practical hold on the believer. Lange, Gesch. des Mat., pp. 530, 531, observes truly, that amidst many analogies between the condition of modern society and that of the Roman Empire, the differences induced by Christian ideas are palpable.

3

reforms.

out of slumber to renewed and vigorous life. The extinction, gradual but complete, of gladiatorial Vast moral shows; of exposure of infants, and infanticide;2 the establishment of orphanages, refuges, almshouses, and hospitals; the emancipation of slavery; the sanctification of the marriage tie;" the foundation (at least after the decay of all Imperial institutions) of primary and public schools; are standing proofs of the tendency and influence of Christianity in apprehending and advancing the true welfare of mankind. These are

1

Compare here Ozanam, u. s., II. c. ii.; and Luthardt, Apolog., pp. 243, 244, E. T.; Lecky, Hist. Rat., II. 264.

2

τεκνογονοῦσιν ἀλλ ̓ οὐ ῥίπτουσι τὰ γεννώμενα.-Ep. ad Diogn., c. v. See Milman, Lat. Chr., I. 347.

3 See Gieseler, II. 60. Χηροτρόφια and ὀρφανοτρόφια are known to date from the fourth century; so also πτωχοτροφεία, νοσοκομεία, ξενώνες, and ξενοδοχεία. The Βασιλειάς was a hospital for lepers. The charitable offices of the Parabolani, Fossani, or кomiáraι (“ ultimum illud et maximum pietatis officium peregrinorum et pauperum sepultura," Lactant., VI. xii.), should be added. On the non-existence of hospitals and infirmaries in Pagan times, see Schmidt, u. s., p. 75.

4 Comp. Robertson, C. H., II. 229. Gregory Naz. and Chrysostom insist largely on the duty; but the first instances are long before: e. g. Hermes, Prefect of Rome under Trajan, freed 1250; Chromatius under Diocletian, 1400, &c. Under this head fall all measures for the improvement of serfs by Gregory the Great, the laws of Constantine and Justinian, &c. Comp. Guizot, Civ. en Fr., II. 125, III. 137, ed. Bohn. Milman, Lat. Chr., I. 338, 365. Lecky, H. Rat., II. 256-258. The Romans often exposed and put to death sick slaves.-Suet., Claud.,

C. XXV.

Even with the Jews, marriage was only a political institution. Contrast with this the touching treatise of Tertull., ad Uxor., II. ix., &c. Compare Milman, Lat. Chr., I. 344.

The first mention of Christian primary schools occurs in the fourth century in Chrysostom and Basil. See in Guizot, u. s., I. 351; II. 100. There is a treatise by M. Lalanne on the Influence des P'ères de l'Église sur l'éducation publique.

of follow

and per

sonal life.

its fuller triumphs, the records of a world-wide humanity, new in motive and spirit as obligatory on the followers of Him Who died for all men. Difficulty Yet it is far more in its action upon individuals, ing it into where History leaves no trace; in calm and silent private influences shed upon personal character, as generation after generation has worked its work and passed; in the purity of domestic life, in souls attuned to the practice of human charities, to the privilege of suffering, to a departure full of immortality; that the real work of Christianity as compared with other religions must be sought and found.' Biography, more than History, is its true record. Never before was the reflection of a Divine Image mirrored so clearly in the human soul or in the practice of mankind. The summits of Christian heroism in martyr, saint, and confessor, first touched with the tints of Heaven, were

cause.

1 See some good remarks in Robertson, C. Hist., I. 363; and Lecky, H. E. M., II. 156:-"Christianity has suffered peculiarly from this The spheres in which its superiority over other religions is most incontestable, are precisely those which history is least capable of realizing." "The record of the spiritual Church," says Isaac Taylor, Enthus., p. 191, "is on high,' not in the tomes that make our libraries proud." "The influence of religion," writes Paley, Ev., II. c. vii., "must be perceived, if perceived at all, in the silent course of private domestic life . . . The kingdom of heaven is within us. That which is the substance of the religion; its hopes and consolations; its intermixture with the thoughts by day and by night; the devotion of the heart; the control of appetite; the steady direction of the will to the commands of God, is necessarily invisible. Yet upon these depend the virtue and the happiness of millions." Christianity, as a system of human restoration, works from the individual to the general. See a fine passage in Milman, Lat. Chr., I. 24.

the first to shine out in the full radiance of moral splendour. But the warm rays were not long in winning their way to valley and to plain, shedding abroad their gifts of fruitfulness and life.

spiritual

primitive

§ 6. Thus the hold of primitive Christianity on Superiority and the minds and consciences of men was both of the force of the strongest and of the highest kind. For it sufficed element in to effect, through much individual suffering and Chrissacrifice, a moral revolution in the world; and tianity. completely changed, by moral force alone, the existing religions. And it must be observed that the changes effected, fraught indeed with very important moral results, were brought about by strictly spiritual convictions. These are to be assigned as the true causes of the movement. Here lies the real point at issue with much of the critical philosophy of our time.' It is evidently possible, in reviewing the career of Christianity, to scan it from more than one point of view, provided only that these be not mutually inconsistent. Charges of failure are necessarily incompatible with admissions of success. But the allowed successes may be variously explained. The benefits effected for The sermankind by the Religion of Jesus Christ can hardly Chrisnow, as facts, be disputed, though they have some- sometimes times been forgotten by too hasty objectors. At

1 Neander (I. 3) remarks: "Because Christianity enters readily into all that is human, striving to assimilate it to its own nature, and to interpenetrate it with its own power, it appears on a superficial view as if it were itself only a product resulting from the combination of the different spiritual elements it had drawn together."

vices of

tianity

assigned to

tive insti

tutions.

T