became
the instrument at least of political power, even where it was wanting in
charity, or momentarily disowned by cowardice. In a word, though Celsus a
hundred years before had pronounced "a man weak who should hope to unite
the three portions of the earth in a common religion," that common
Catholic faith had been found, and a principle of empire was created which
had never before existed. The phenomenon could not be mistaken; and the
Roman statesman saw he had to deal with a rival. Nor must we suppose,
because on the surface of the history we read so much of the vicissitudes
of imperial power, and of the profligacy of its possessors, that the
fabric of government was not sustained by traditions of the strongest
temper, and by officials of the highest sagacity. It was the age of
lawyers and politicians; and they saw more and more clearly that if
Christianity was not to revolutionize the empire, they must follow out the
line of action which Trajan and Antoninus had pointed out.

Decius then had scarcely assumed the purple, when he commenced that new
policy against the Church which was reserved to Diocletian, fifty years
later, to carry out to its own final refutation. He entered on his power
at the end of the year 249; and on the January 20th following, the day on
which the Church still celebrates the event, St. Fabian, Bishop of Rome,
obtained the crown of martyrdom. He had been pope for the unusually long
space of fourteen years, having been elected in consequence of one of
those remarkable interpositions of Divine Providence of which we now and
then read in the first centuries of the Church. He had come up to Rome
from the country, in order to be present at the election of a successor to
Pope Anteros. A dove was seen to settle on his head, and the assembly rose
up and forced him, to his surprise, upon the episcopal throne. After
bringing back the relics of St. Pontian, his martyred predecessor, from
Sardinia, and having become the apostle of great part of Gaul, he seemed
destined to end his history in the same happy quiet and obscurity in which
he had lived; but it did not become a pope of that primitive time to die
upon his bed, and he was reserved at length to inaugurate in his own
person, as chief pastor of the Church, a fresh company of martyrs.

Suddenly an edict appeared for the extermination of the name and religion
of Christ. It was addressed to the proconsuls and other governors of
provinces; and alleged or