calmly
kneeled in prayer, and to the superstitious bystanders a bright
nimbus seemed to play around their brows and heaven to be opened
above. As they perished at the stake, amidst brutal jeers and
shrivelling flames, serenely maintaining their profession, and
calling on Christ, over the lurid vista of smoke and fire broke on
their rapt vision the blessed splendors of Paradise; and their joy
seemed, to the enthusiastic believers around, no less than a
Divine inspiration, confirming their faith, and preaching, through
the unquestionable truthfulness of martyrdom, the certainty of
immortal life. The survivors celebrated the anniversaries of the
martyrs' deaths as their birthdays into the endless life.

Fourthly, another means by which Christianity operated to deepen
and spread a belief in the future life was, indirectly, through
its influence in calling out and cultivating the affections of the
heart. The essence of the gospel in theory, as taught by all its
teachers, in fact, as incarnated by Christ, and in practice, as
working in history is love. From the first it condemned and tended
to destroy all the coldness and hatred of human hearts; and it
strove to elicit and foster every kindly sentiment and generous
impulse, to draw its disciples together by those yearning ties of
sympathy and devotion which instinctively demand and divinely
prophesy an eternal union in a better world. The more mightily two
human hearts love each other, the stronger will be their
spontaneous longing for immortality. The unrivalled revelation of
the disinterested love of God made by Christianity, and its effect
in refining and increasing the love of men, have contributed in a
most important degree to sanction and diffuse the faith in a
blessed life reserved for men hereafter. One remarkable
specification may be noticed. The only pagan description of
children in the future life is that given by some of the classic
poets, who picture the infant shades lingering in groups around
the dismal gates of the under world, weeping and wailing because
they could never find admittance.

"Continuo audita voces, vagitus et ingens, Infantumque
animaflentes in limine primo."

Go the long round of the pagan heavens, you will find no trace of
a child. Children were withered blossoms blown to oblivion. The
soft breezes that fanned the Blessed Isles and played through the
perennial summer of Elysium blew upon no infant brows. The grave
held all the children v