ims to have laid
the foundations of the most stable structure of social and political
institutions that the world has ever known, and which to-day, after
twenty-five centuries of trial, appeals to the intellectual pride of all
intelligent classes in a great empire of four hundred millions! And
finally, how different is our task with Buddhism, so mystical and
abstruse, so lofty in many of its precepts, and yet so cold and thin, so
flexible and easily adapted, and therefore so varied and many sided! The
religious systems with which we are now confronted find their
counterparts only in the heathenism with which the early Church had to
deal many centuries ago; and for this reason the history of those early
struggles is full of practical instruction for us now. How did the early
Church succeed in its great conquest? What methods were adopted, and
with what measures of success?

In one respect there is a wide difference in the two cases. The Apostles
were attempting to convert their conquerors. They belonged to the
vanquished race; they were of a despised nationality. The early fathers
also were subjects of Pagan powers. Insomuch as the Roman emperors
claimed divine honors, there was an element of treason in their
propagandism. The terrible persecutions which so long devastated the
early Church found their supposed justification in the plea of
self-defence against a system which threatened to subvert cherished and
time-honored institutions. Candid writers, like Archdeacon Farrar, admit
that Christianity did hasten the overthrow of the Roman Empire.

But we find no conquering powers in our pathway. Christianity and
Christian civilization have become dominant in the earth. The weakness
of the Christian Church in its conquests now is not in being baffled and
crippled by tyranny and persecution, but rather in the temptation to
arrogance and the abuse of superior power, in the overbearing spirit
shown in the diplomacy of Christian nations and the unscrupulous
aggressions of their commerce. There is also a further contrast in the
fact that in the early days the advantages of frugality and simple
habits of life were on the side of the missionaries. Roman society
especially was beginning to suffer that decay which is the inevitable
consequence of long-continued luxury, while the Church observed
temperance in all things and excelled in the virtues which always tend
to moral and social victory.[22]

On the other hand, we who are the