ly, and not in deed. Every one
studies to please himself and to displease others."

This account of professed Christianity at this time by Cyprian is
confirmed by the testimony of Eusebius, who was nearly contemporary with
him. "Through too much liberty they grew negligent and slothful, envying
and reproaching one another, waging, as it were, civil wars among
themselves, bishops quarreling with bishops, and the people divided into
parties. Hypocrisy and deceit were grown to the highest pitch of
wickedness. They were become so insensible as not so much as to think of
appeasing the divine anger; but like atheists they thought the world
destitute of any providential government and care, and thus added one
crime to another. The bishops themselves had thrown off all concern about
religion, were perpetually contending with one another, and did nothing
but quarrel with and threaten and envy and hate one another: they were
full of ambition and tyrannically used their power."--_Eusebius' History_,
Book VIII, Chap. I, as quoted in _Jones' Church History_.

Ruter's Church History. (Third Century.)

"With the opinions, the Christian teachers had adopted the habits and
manners of the philosophic school. They assumed the dress of the pompous
sophist, and delivered the plain doctrines of the gospel with strained and
studied eloquence."

"This season of external prosperity was improved by the ministers of the
church for the exertion of new claims and the assumption of powers with
which they had not previously been invested."--p. 52.

"Several alterations in the form of church government appear to have been
introduced during the third century. Some degree of pomp was thought
necessary to render so singular an institution respectable to the minds of
a gross multitude who are only capable of judging from external
appearances. As their numbers increased their labors became proportionally
greater, and it was necessary to provide assistance and more agreeable to
good order to assign to each his proper function. Inferior ministers were
therefore instituted, who derived their appellations from the office they
filled.

"These ministers probably derived their emoluments, not merely from the
precarious bounty of the society, but from a certain proportion of the
fixed revenues of the church. The principal of them had obtained before
the close of this century the possession of several considerable estates,
which had been bequeathed or p