sharp, and stern, and strictly
virtuous is apostolic religion, as displayed in these letters. Is it
possible then that these converted heathens did really even approach
this standard of morality? Did this gospel of Christ actually produce
any such reformation of their lives?

You have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by giving
such information as they knew would be acceptable to the persecutor; you
have the testimony of the two aged deaconesses, under torture; you have
the unwilling, but yet express, testimony of their torturer and
murderer, that all his cruel ingenuity could discover nothing worse than
an excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy. What, then, does this
philosophic inspector of entrails, and adorer of idols, call an
excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy? Why, they bound
themselves by the most solemn religious services, not to be guilty of
theft, robbery, or adultery; not to falsify their word, nor deny a
pledge committed to them; and when some senseless blocks of brass were
carried on men's shoulders, into the court-house, to represent a mortal
man, they would not adore them, nor pray to them; no, not though this
philosopher compiled the liturgy, and set the example. For this refusal,
and this alone, he ordered them away to death. Doubtless they heard, in
their hearts, the well-known words, "Let none of you suffer as a
murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other
men's matters. But if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be
ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf."

The morality of the Epistles, then, was not a merely a fine theory, but
an actual rule of life. The moral codes of the apostles were received as
actually binding on the members of the churches of the first century. In
this all-important matter of the rule of a good life--the fruits by
which the tree is known--the integrity, authority, and success of the
apostles, in turning licentious heathens into moral Christians, is
authenticated by the unwilling testimony of their persecutors. The
Epistles of the apostles stand confirmed, as to their ethics, by the
letters of Trajan and Pliny.

4. The only other fact to which I call your attention, from among the
multitude alluded to in these letters, is the cost at which these
converts from heathenism embraced this new religion. Every one who
renounced heathenism, and professed the name of Christ, knew very well
that he must su