world, to destroy temporal and secular arrangements, and shake to the foundations the several orders of society, their own amongst the number; still the Church, whose roots strike deeper, will live in spite of them, and rise again unsubdued to testify against them when they and their tyranny shall be overpast.

I will conclude this chapter with enforcing once more the remark which I made before entering upon this department of my History; that we are not to wonder at the complete organization of the Church in very early times, much earlier than is generally supposed; seeing that the Apostles planted their Churches so deliberately; were themselves, in many cases, at hand to superintend them and the incidents which might require regulation in them for so long a season; and in all cases were so careful to limit their field to a reasonable compass; and, this done, were no less painstaking to devolve their office upon others whom they had made fully conversant with their own plans, and who were even still more closely confined to their respective walks than themselves, in proportion as their districts were better marked out, and the calls on them within those districts more constant and pressing.

CHAPTER V.

Elements at work in the spread of the Gospel.-The Kingdom of God springing and growing up as the Seed.-The Impression made on the Heathen byt he Conduct and Manner of Life of the Christians.-Their Order and Sobriety amid the Excesses which prevailed.—Admiration excited by the Sufferings of the Martyrs.

HAVING now described the broad features of the Church, as a body organized by God for the reduction of the world to Christianity, and having contemplated its direct action, let us turn our attention to other elements at work in the dispersion of the Gospel; under God's providence, accessory and subordinate helps in the great cause, not the less effectual, perhaps, because hidden and unobtrusive.

Undoubtedly, the brunt of the battle lay with the Apostles and the successors of the Apostles, the hierarchy they established, the company of preachers they dispersed and located, the institutions they called into being and animated; the practical system, in short, which they reared, upheld, and bequeathed as an immortal legacy to the world. But much was nevertheless done indirectly, incidentally, and out of the ordinary course. It is true that in some cases Satan was seen to fall from heaven as lightning. But in many others the kingdom of God came not with observation. The Samaritans were converted by Philip in the ordinary manner by sermons and miracles; but the Eunuch, as he was riding in his chariot, fell in with him, too, and was made a Christian; all

Æthiopia, perhaps, sharing in the consequences. It was not the intention of St. Paul, as far as we know, to plant the Cross in Melita. But he being driven ashore by the tempest, it so came to pass; the remote results of this incident probably much more considerable than appears, for the intercourse between Melita and Africa was intimate, the island, then, as now, being supplied with corn from that quarter-it was a ship of Alexandria that had wintered in the isle which gave St. Paul a passage-the barbarous people of Melita (barbarous, inasmuch as they spoke the Phoenician language of Africa, and not Greek, for otherwise they seem to have been truly civilised1) being very well qualified to spread the report of St. Paul's teaching amongst their countrymen on the mainland. It was an accident, as popular language would express it, which threw Onesimus in the way of St. Paul. He was a runaway slave, who, perhaps, led by curiosity to visit the Apostle in prison, or perhaps, wanting a friend and adviser, and hearing of his benevolent character, sought him out; but, whatever was the moving cause in the first instance, a convert to Christ he became, a faithful emissary of St. Paul to distant brethren; 2 and, probably, in the end a bishop of the Church. Our Lord's words constantly recur to us, whilst we are upon this topic, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how." Justin Martyr had not his thoughts turned to the Gospel by any formal appeal to him, but (as he tells his own tale to Trypho the Jew) happened to meet with an old man near the coast, as he was musing on Plato in solitude,

3

1 Biscoe on the Acts, p. 46. 2 Col. iv. 9.

3 Beroa in Macedonia, Constit.

vii. c. 45.

4 Mark iv. 26, 27.

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who proved to be a Christian, and who, having awakened his curiosity on the subject of the Gospel, left him, and was seen of him no more. But the effect of his casual intercourse remained; he had encountered an angel unawares and Justin was led by it to inquire and believe, and not only so, but eventually to stand forth as a very eminent champion of the faith, and to plead its cause in the highest quarters. Minucius Felix furnishes another and a very remarkable instance of the same great results proceeding from the same trivial beginnings. The incident, indeed, gives the cast to his little work. He tells us of a conversation of one Octavius, a friend of his and a Christian, whose name supplies the title of his book, with Cæcilius, a heathen, which had vividly impressed itself on his memory, and which ended in the conversion of Cæcilius. Cæcilius had been paying

a visit to Minucius at Rome. After talking over old times for a while, they, together with Octavius, adjourned to Ostia, for sea-bathing; Minucius not very well, and the vacation, for he was a lawyer, having closed the courts, and set him at liberty.' As they were pacing the shore, Cæcilius, in passing, saluted an image of Serapis; Octavius (who, like Minucius, was a Christian) observing that a good man ought not to allow his friend and companion to continue in such darkness. Meanwhile they pursued their walk, stopping, however, where the boats were drawn up on the beach, to watch some boys who were playing at ducks and drakes at the water's edge. Minucius, perceiving that Cæcilius was silent and thoughtful, inquired the cause. He had been galled by the remark of Octavius. So far from admitting that he was in ignorance, he was prepared to debate the subject of revelation, and accordingly threw down the challenge. Upon this, they all seat themselves on the Mole; the 1 Minucius, § 2.

dialogue proceeds, and ends, as I have said, in the conversion of Cæcilius to Christianity.

Nothing can be more natural, or more according to the common course of events, than these encounters. For even if we suppose the Dialogues of Justin or of Minucius to have been rhetorical exercises, we must still regard the structure of the compositions as consistent with the events of the day; Cæcilius, Octavius, or Trypho, fictitious characters, if you will, and the debates imaginary; but drawn according to life, consistent with scenes which actually occurred. But what happened to Justin or Cæcilius might happen to hundreds or thousands; and thus souls might be added to the Church daily, by agents who had no formal commission to win. them, and who found themselves involved in the work of propagating the Gospel, without the slightest intention of it on their own part.

Nor was this all. The very nature of Christianity, when once introduced into a country, was such as to excite attention and awake curiosity. Christians were a body of men so singular in their ways, presenting so many particulars in contrast to the manners of the citizens they lived amongst, that it was impossible their principles should not become matter for investigation, their practices matter for observation and comment. Even in our own day, the peculiarities of a sect lead at once to inquiry after its character and constitution. How quickly and extensively, for instance, was the knowledge of George Fox and the Quakers dispersed, when it was perceived that, in many respects, their carriage was different from that of the world at large. The early Christians, however they might wish it, could not conceal themselves effectually; even any attempt at doing so would only surround them with additional mystery, which would provoke a greater desire to penetrate it. If the

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