look
upon so strong to encourage, so mighty to console.

Such were the decorations of the chapels. The only furniture which they
contained was a simple wooden table upon which they placed the bread and
wine of the sacrament, the symbols of the body and blood of their dying
Lord.

Christianity had struggled long, and it was a struggle with corruption.
It will not be thought strange, then, if the Church contracted some
marks of a too close contact with her foe, or if she carried some of
them down to her place of refuge. Yet if they had some variations from
the apostolic model, these were so trifling that they might be
overlooked altogether, were it not that they opened the way to greater
ones. Still, the essential doctrines of Christianity knew no pollution,
no change. The guilt of man, the mercy of the Father, the atonement of
the Son, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, salvation through faith in
the Redeemer, all these foundations of truth were cherished with a
fervor and an energy to which no language can do justice.

Theirs was that heavenly hope, the anchor of the soul, so strong and so
secure that the storm of an empire's wrath failed to drive them from the
Rock of Ages where they were sheltered.

Theirs was that lofty faith which upheld them through the sorest trials,
a sincere trust in God that could not doubt. There was no need here
either of discussions about the theological term "faith," or of formal
prayers that regarded it as some immaterial essence. Faith with them was
everything. It was the very breath of life; so true that it upheld them
in the hour of cruel sacrifices; so lasting that even when it seemed
that all the followers of Christ had vanished from the earth, they could
still look up trustfully and wait.

Theirs was that love which Christ when on earth defined as comprising
all the law and the prophets. Sectarian strife, denominational
bitterness, were unknown. They had a great general foe to fight, how
could they quarrel with one another. Here arose love to man which knew
no distinction of race or class, but embraced all in its immense
circumference, so that one could lay down his life for his brother; here
arose love to God which stopped not at the sacrifice of life itself. The
persecutions which raged around them gave them all that zeal, faith, and
love which glowed so brightly amid the darkness of the age. It confined
their numbers to the true and the sincere. It was the antidote to
hypoc