driven out, and the baptized were crowned and clothed with white garments, as conquerors over sin and the world. The sign of the cross, was, in this early period, supposed to possess power to avert calamities and to drive off demons, and was carried by Christians wherever they went. Fasting was in high repute. Prayers were offered three times a day, and forms began to be introduced. Sermons were long, full of trope and figure, in affectation of Grecian eloquence. And saints began to feel that there could be no piety out of the bounds of a particular Church government.

But notwithstanding these degeneracies, many and precious were the fruits of the spirit. The Church existed in an empire the most corrupt and abominable that the world had ever seen. But amid the grossest sensuality, practised without remorse or loss of character by men in the highest ranks, many of her fruits were holiness to the Lord. If she had not the purity of the first century, she had still a self-denial and elevation above the world, and a fortitude under suffering, and a spirit of subordination which no where else existed; and a spirit of benevolence which made the wondering heathen exclaim, "Behold how these Christians love one another." As a proof of the strictness of her discipline, it is observed, that a clergyman once deposed for immorality, was never restored to his order; and a communicant once cast out for his vices might be restored, but on a second ejection, could never be admitted to the Church; though he might not be beyond the mercy of God and final salvation. Men spared no pains or expense to obtain multiplied copies of the word of God.

The sabbath was strictly regarded, and the sacrament was weekly administered. This ordinance, however, began to be misused-being considered essential to salvation, and adminis tered with pomp, even to infants.

The fires of persecution raged; the most odious calumnies were invented; men, vile and contemptible, exercised the most wanton barbarities, under the ensigns of office. The Christians were amazingly numerous, and were possessed of learning, wealth and talents; many of them were officers and soldiers in the Roman armies, and, had they been disposed, might have given the government the greatest trouble and perhaps overturned it completely; yet no instance of insurrection or resistance to civil authority was known among them, for God had said, "Vengeance is mine." Their bitterest enemies could bring no other charge of treason but this, that they refused to worship the gods of Rome.

Their benevolence was such as the world had not before and

has scarce since seen. They not only gave of their treasures to their own poor, but they exerted themselves to relieve distress and suffering wherever they could find it. The Jew passed by the wounded Samaritan, and the Greek harangued about virtue, but never erected an hospital or an alms-house. But the Church in Rome, supported, at one time, a thousand and fifty widows. Christians felt that they did not deserve the appellation they bore, unless they spent their lives in doing good. Whole and immense estates were consecrated to public charity. Having renounced the luxuries of the world, they did not need great wealth, and they viewed their poor brethren as on a level with themselves, as sinners, ransomed by the blood of the Son of God.

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But their worth is best shewn by a writer of their own times. "We pray," says Tertullian in his apology for the Christians, for the safety of the emperors to the eternal God. We, looking up to heaven, with outstretched hands, because they are harmless; with naked head, because we are not ashamed; without a prompter, because we pray from the heart; stantly pray for all emperors, that they may have a long life, a secure empire, a safe palace, strong armies, a faithful senate, a well moralized people, a quiet state of the world; whatever. Cæsar would wish for himself in his public or private capacity. Were we disposed to act the part, I will not say, of secret assassins, but of open enemies, should we want forces and numbers? Are there not multitudes of us in every part of the world? It is true we are but of yesterday, and yet we have filled all your towns, cities, islands, castles, boroughs, councils, camps, courts, palaces, senate, forum-We leave you only your temples. For what war

should we not be ready and well prepared, even though unequal in numbers; we-who die with so much pleasure, were it not that our religion requires us rather to suffer death than inflict it? If we were to make a general secession from your dominions, you would be astonished at your solitude. We are dead to all ideas of worldly honor and dignity; nothing is more foreign to us than political concerns. The whole world is our republic. We are a body united in one bond of religion, discipline and hope. We meet in our assemblies for prayer. Every one pays something into the public chest, once month, or when he pleases, and according to his ability and inclination, for there is no compulsion. These gifts are, as it were, the deposits of piety. Hence we relieve and bury the needy, support orphans and decrepit persons; those who have suffered shipwreck, and those, who, for the word of God,

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This very

are condemned to the mines for imprisonment. charity of ours has caused us to be noticed by some:-"See," say they, "how these Christians love one another.”

He was a

Tertullian lived at Carthage, the latter part of the second and beginning of the third century. In early life, he was a lawyer; but became a presbyter of the church. man of profound learning; of warm and vigorous piety; but of a temperament melancholy and austere; and unhappily adopted, in the close of life, the visions of Montanus. He is the first latin writer of the church, whose works have been transmitted to us.

About the same period flourished Ireneus, bishop of Lyons. He was a Greek by birth and a disciple of Polycarp. "I can describe," says he, in a letter to a friend, "the very spot in which Polycarp sat and expounded, and his coming in and going out, and the very manner of his life and the figure of his body, and the sermons which he preached to the multitude, and how he related to us his converse with John and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord; how he mentioned the particular expressions, and what things he had heard from them of the Lord and of his miracles, and of his doctrine. As Polycarp had received from the eye witnesses of the word of life, he told us all things agreeably to the Scriptures. These things then, through the mercy of God inviting me, I heard with seriousness; I wrote them, not on paper, but on my heart; and ever since, through the grace of God, I have a genuine remembrance of them; aud I can witness before God, that if that blessed Apostolical Presbyter had heard some of the doctrines which are now maintained, he would have cried out and stopped his ears, and, in the usual manner, have said, 'O good, God to what times hast thou reserved me, that I should endure such things.' And he would immediately have fled from the place in which he heard such doctrines."

Ireneus was ordained successor to Pothinus, A. D. 169, and suffered martyrdom under the persecution of Severus, in the beginning of the third century. He was a man of much meekness, humility, dexterity and resolution. He had a true missionary spirit. He was a superior Greek scholar, and doubtless might have obtained the luxuries and pleasures of Asia, but these he renounced from the love of souls. He went among the Gauls, learned their barbarous dialect and conformed to their plain and homely fare. He wrote five books against the heresies of the age, which have been transmitted to us,-preeious relics of antiquity.

About the middle of this century, two men shone with distinguished brightness. Origen, a presbyter and catechist of Alexandria, and Cyprian, bishop of Carthage.

In his youth, Origen saw his father beheaded, for professing Christianity, and all the family estate confiscated. But providence provided for him. A rich lady in Alexandria became his friend and patron. He applied himself to study, and soon acquired prodigious stores of learning. While pursuing his studies, he distinguished himself by his attachment to the martyrs, and was often in peril of his life. He early became a catechist in the school at Alexandria. Multitudes crowded to hear him, and were impressed by his instructions. His daily habit was one of excessive austerity. Hearing of the power of his doctrine, Mammea, the mother of the Emperor sent for him, to hear him. At the age of forty-five, he was ordained a priest and delivered theological lectures in Palestine. In diligence and learning he surpassed all men. Of this, the remains of his Hexapla is the memorial. To confront the Jews, who always objected against those passages of scripture which were quoted against them, as not agreeing with the Hebrew version, he undertook to reduce all the Latin and Greek versions then in use, into a body with the Hebrew text, that they might be at once compared. He made six columns. In the first he placed the Hebrew, as the standard, nd in the next, the Septuagint, and then the other versions according to their dates-passage against passage. The whole filled 50 large volumes. It was found fifty years after his death, in an obscure place in the city of Tyre, and deposited in a public library. The most of it was destroyed in the capture of the city, A. D. 653. It was called the Hexapla, or work of six columns.

As a theologian, he was ruined by the Platonic philosophy; and unhappily introduced a mode of explaining scripture which was of incalculable injury to the Church. He supposed it was not to be explained in a literal, but in an allegorical manner; and that the meaning of the sacred writers was to be sought in a hidden sense, arising from the things themselves. This hidden sense he endeavoured to give, and always did it at the expense of truth. This hidden sense he further divided into the moral and mystical. The latter was of his own creation and very wild. He seems to have been but little acquainted with the plain, evangelical doctrines of the Gospel; to have adopted most fatal errors; to have given no offence in his preaching to men of the world; but, on the contrary, to have been very popular with philosophers and philologists, and men of wiid fancies and visionary notions; and was much honoured by courts.

He introduced the practice of selecting a single text as the subject of discourse. He suffered martyrdom; but no man did more to corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel, and his vast popularity gives us a low idea of the state of religion at that period.

Cyprian was no less great, but a very different character. He came late in life into the vineyard of Christ, without the learning of Origen, but with great abilities and a heart devoted to the service of God. He was slain by the law; made to feel himself poor and wretched in the bonds of Paganism and to inquire with earnestness for light and salvation. His conversion was sudden, but effectual, and he entered deeply into all the doctrines of grace. For twelve years, he was bishop of Carthage, strong in Episcopacy, and on the subject of miracles, unhappily wild. Thinking it his duty to save life, he once went into retirement during the persecution of Decius; but was as active, when hidden from the view of his enemies, as when in public. He gave the Scriptures a literal interpretation. He maintained strict discipline in the churches, and, by his firmness and perseverance, gained the victory over a -most powerful party, who would open wide the door of pardon and reconciliation, to all the lapsed. He effectually resisted many heresies; recovered many apostates; and, through his example and influence, the north of Africa, now covered with gross Mahommedan darkness, was, for many years, as the garden of God. He fell a glorious martyr to the cause of truth, A. D. 257, under the persecution of Valerian. He bound the

napkin over his own eyes. A presbyter and a deacon tied his hands, and the Christians placed before him handkerchiefs and napkins to receive his blood. His head was then severed from his body by a sword. His writings cannot fail to be read with pleasure and profit.

A letter of his claims a place in ecclesiastical history, as throwing some light on a much disputed subject. A council of sixty-six bishops was held in Africa, over which Cyprian presided, for regulating the internal affairs of the churches. A question came before them whether infants should be baptized immediately after their birth, or on the eighth day. In a letter toidus, Cyprian says, "As to the case of infants, of whom you said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day of their birth, and that the ancient law of circumcision should be so far adhered to, that they ought not to be baptized till the eighth day, we were all of a very different opinion. We all judged that the mercy and grace of God should be denied to none. Our sentence, therefore.