and the den are the last a man gives up. He must be abandoned by his friends, the wise, the learned, the venerable. Few men know of the battle between new convictions and old social sympathies; but it is of the severest character, a war of extermination. He must condemn all his past conduct, lose the reputation of consistency, leave all the comforts of society, all chance of reputation among men,-be counted as a thief and murderer, perhaps be put to death. But the truth conquered. We think it easy to decide as Paul, forgetting that many things become plain after the result, which were dim and doubtful before.

When the young man had decided in favour of Christianity, he would require some instruction in matters pertaining to the heavenly doctrine, we should suppose,taking the popular views of Christianity, which make it an historical thing, depending on personal authority, or eye-witness, and external events, as the only possible proof of internal truths. He would go and sit down with the twelve and listen to their talk, and learn of all the miracles; how Jesus raised the young man, the maiden, called Lazarus from the tomb; how he changed the water into wine, and fed the five thousand; he would go to Martha and Mary to learn the recondite doctrine of the Saviour; to the mother of Jesus, to inquire about his birth of the Holy Spirit. But the thing went different. He did not go to Peter, the chief apostle; nor to John, the beloved disciple; nor James, the Lord's brother. "I conferred not with flesh and blood," says the new convert, "neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia." Three years afterwards, for the first time, he had an interview with Peter and James. Fourteen years later he went up to Jerusalem to compare notes, as it were, with those "who seemed to be somewhat." They could tell him nothing new. At last-many years after the commencement of his active ministry-James, Peter, and John give him the right hand of their fellowship. Paul, it seems, had heard of the great doctrines of Jesus, and out of their principles developed his scheme of Christianity,-not a very difficult task, one would fancy, for a plain man, who reckoned Christianity was love of man and love of God. In those

days the Gospels were not written, nor yet the Epistles. Christianity had no history, except that Jesus lived, preached, was crucified, and appeared after his crucifixion. Therefore the gospel Paul preached might well enough be different from those now in our hands. Certainly Paul never mentions a miracle of Jesus; says nothing of his superhuman birth. Had he known of these things, a man of his strong love of the marvellous would scarcely be silent.

In him primitive Christianity appears to the greatest advantage. It shone in his heart, like the rising sun chasing away the mist and clouds of night. His prejudices went first; his passions next. Soon he is on foot, journeying the world over to proclaim the faith, which once he destroyed. Where are his bigotry, prejudice, hatred, his idols of the tribe and the den? The flame of religion has consumed them all. Forth he goes to the work; the strong passion, the unconquerable will, are now directed in the same channel with his love of man. His mighty soul wars with Heathenism, declaring an idol is nothing; with Judaism, to announce that the law has passed away; with folly and sin, to declare them of the devil, and lead men to truth and peace. The resolute apostle goes flaming forth in his ministry. A soul more robust, great-hearted, and manly, does not appear in history, for some centuries at the least. Danger is nothing; persecution nothing. It only puts the keener edge on his well-tempered spirit. He is content and joyful at bearing all the reproaches man can lay on him. There was nothing sham in Paul. He felt what he said, which is common enough. But he lived what he felt, which is not so common. What wonder that such, a man made converts, overcame violence, and helped the truth to triumph? It were wonderful if he had not. Take away the life and influence of Paul, the Christian world is a different thing; we cannot tell what it would have been. Under his hands, and those of his coadjutors, the new faith spreads from heart to heart, till many thousands own the name, and amid all the persecution that follows, the pious of the earth celebrate such a jubilee as the sun never saw before.

However, it was not among the great and refined, but the low and the rude, that the faith found its early con

fessors. Men came up faint and hungry, from the highways and hedges of society, to eat the bread of life at God's table. They ate and were filled. Here it is that all religions take their rise. The sublime faith of the Hebrews. began in a horde of slaves. The Christian has a carpenter for its revealer; fishermen for its first disciples; a tentmaker for its chief apostle. Yet these men could stand before kings' courts and Felix trembled at Paul's reasoning. Yes, the world trembled at such reasoning. And when whole multitudes gave in their adhesion; when the common means of tyranny, prisons, racks, and the cross, failed to repress "this detestable superstition," as ill-natured Tacitus calls it; but when two thousand men and women, delicate maidens, and men newly married, come to the Prætor, and say, "We are Christians all; kill us if you will; we cannot change; "-then for the first time official persons begin to look into the matter, and inquire for the cause which makes women heroines, and young men martyrs. There are always enough to join any folly because it is new. But when the headsman's axe gleams under his apron, or slaves erect a score of crosses in the marketplace, and men see the mangled limbs of brothers, fathers, and sons, huddled into bloody sacks, or thrown to the dogs, it requires some heart to bear up, accept a new faith, and renounce mortal life.

It is sometimes asked, what made so many converts to Christianity, under such fearful circumstances? The answer depends on the man. Most men apply the universal solvent, and call it a miracle-an over-stepping of the laws of mind. The apostles had miraculous authority; Peter had miraculous revelations; Paul a miraculous conversion; both visions, and other miraculous assistance, all their life. That they taught by miracles. But what could it be? The authority of the teachers? The authority of a Jewish peasant would not have passed for much at Ephesus or Alexandria, at Lycaonia or Rome. Were they infallibly inspired, so that they could not err in doctrine or practice? Thus it has been taught. But their opponents did not believe it; their friends knew nothing of it, or there had been no sharp dissension between Paul and Barnabas, nor any disagreement of Paul with Peter. They themselves seem never to have dreamed of such an infallibility, or they

would not change their plans and doctrine as Peter did; nor need instruction as Titus, Timothy, and all the primitive teachers, to whom James sent the circular epistle of the first synod. If they had believed themselves infallibly inspired, they would not assemble a council of all to decide, what each infallible person could determine as well as all the spirits and angels together. Still less could any discussion arise among the apostles as to the course to be pursued. Was it their learning that gave them success? They could not even interpret the Psalms, without making the most obvious mistakes, as any one may see, who reads the book of Acts. Was it their eloquence, their miraculous gift of tongues? What was the eloquence of Peter, or James, when Paul, their chief apostle, was weak in bodily presence, and contemptible in speech? No; it was none of these things. They had somewhat more convincing than authority; wiser than learning; more persuasive than eloquence. Men felt the doctrine was true and divine. They saw its truth and divinity mirrored in the life of these rough men; they heard the voice of God in their own hearts say, it is true. They tried it by the standard God has placed in the heart, and it stood the test. They saw the effect it had on Christians themselves, and said, "Here at least is something divine, for men do not gather grapes of thorns." When men came out from hearing Peter or Paul set forth the Christian doctrine and apply it to life, they did not say, "What a moving speaker; how beautifully he 'divides the word;' how he mixes the light of the sun, and the roar of torrents, and the sublimity of the stars, as it were, in his speech; what a melting voice; what graceful gestures; what beautiful similes gathered from all the arts, sciences, poetry, and Nature herself!" It was not with such reflections they entertained their journey home. They said, "What shall we do to be saved?"

Primitive Christianity was a wonderful element, as it came into the world. Like a two-edged sword, it cut down through all the follies and falseness of four thousand years. It acknowledged what was good and true in all systems, and sought to show its own agreement with goodness and truth, wherever found. It told men what they were. It bade them hope, look upon the light, and aspire after the most noble end-to be complete men, to be reconciled

to the will of God, and so become one with Him. It gave the world assurance of a man, by showing one whose life was beautiful as his doctrine, and that combined all the excellence of all former teachers, and went before the world, thousands of years. It told men there was one God--who had made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and was a Father to each man. It showed that all men are brothers. Believing in these doctrines; seeing the greatness of man's nature in the very ruin sin had wrought; filled with the beauty of a good life, the comforting thought, that God is always near, and ready to help,-no wonder men felt moved in their heart. The life of the apostles and early Christians, the self-denial they practised, their readiness to endure persecution, their love one for the other, beautifully enforced the words of truth and love.

One of the early champions of the faith appeals in triumph to the excellence of Christians, which even Julian of a later day was forced to confess. You know the Christians soon as you see them, he says; they are not found in taverns, nor places of infamous resort; they neither game, nor lie, nor steal, attend the baths, or the theatres; they are not selfish, but loving. The multitude looked on, at first to see "whereunto the thing would grow." They saw, and said, See how these Christians love one another; how the new religion takes down the selfishness of the proud, makes avarice charitable, and the voluptuary selfdenying.

This new spirit of piety, of love to man and love to God, the active application of the great Christian maxims to life, led to a manly religion; not to the pale-faced pietism which hangs its head on Sundays, and does nothing but whine out its sentimental cant on week-days, in hopes to make this drivelling pass current for real manly excellence. No; it led to a noble, upright frame of mind, heart, and soul, and in this way it conquered the world. The first apostles of Christianity were persuasive, through the power of truth. They told what they had felt. They had been under the law, and knew its thraldom; they had escaped from the iron furnace, and could teach others the way. No doubt, the wisest of them was in darkness on many points. Their general ignorance, in the eyes of the scholar, must have stood in strange contrast with their clear view of religious