reverence with which both the words and actions of those in prisons or under torments were regarded by their fellow-Christians, must have in some measure softened the pains they endured. Indeed, this feeling seems to have been carried too far, and good as it was in itself, it became the cause of mischief to the Church, since it set up a new power that was sometimes opposed to the power of the bishops and clergy, the lawful guides of the Christian brotherhood. And, without wishing at all to lessen the glory of those, who at the risk of their lives confessed Christ before men, we must allow something for the effect which the hope of such favours from their brethren (in case their lives were spared,) must have had, even upon the quietest and most pure-minded Christians. Indeed, such hopes, rather than a truly holy zeal, must have given birth to that violent desire of suffering, which was not uncommon in the early ages of our faith. This excessive zeal was very properly checked both by the advice and example of the wisest and most exalted Christians. "Our Saviour," it was truly said, "in commanding us to fly from persecution, did not mean that it is an evil to suffer, or that we should escape from this, as if we were afraid of dying. He wishes us to be the cause of evil to no man, neither to ourselves;-not to the suffering, nor yet to the injuring person. If a man, in killing a fellow-creature, made after the Divine image, sins against God, he who of his own

own accord gives himself up to the judge, is guilty of his own death. And such a one is he who does not betake himself to flight, but boldly offers himself as a victim. As far as lies in his power, he helps forward the wickedness of his persecutors. And if he provokes them besides, that man is as much the cause of his own death as is one who provokes a wild beast." Such was the sensible advice of the best informed Christian teachers, and their example did not disagree with what they taught. For instance, during a time of great suffering in Egypt, numbers of the Christians, to avoid the danger, fled into the mountains, where many perished through want, or cold, or disease; by the hands of robbers, or by the attacks of wild beasts; while some were spared to return again in safety to their homes, when the storm that had threatened them had passed over. Among those that never returned was a very aged bishop of one of the cities in Egypt. He had fled along with his wife into some mountain in Arabia, but although great search was made, no traces of them could be discovered, not even their bones. Whether they had been torn in pieces by savage animals, or whether they had been seized and made slaves, (as many were,) by the scarcely less savage inhabitants, was unknown :-they had disappeared from the eyes of their brethren ! And, it may be observed, a martyrdom like this is quite as precious in the sight of God, as one that may, seem more glorious and

more triumphant to man. We have every reason to believe that the hunger and thirst, the cold and misery, the fear and danger, the pain and horror, felt by these poor wanderers in the midst of the silent desert, and in the bosom of the rugged mountain, were seen in secret, and will one day be rewarded openly;-it may be, in many cases, even in a yet higher degree than those sufferings, which have already in some measure had their reward in the praise and admiration of mankind.

Besides these, we must not overlook another large class of sufferers for righteousness' sake. Who but the Great Judge of all men can at all reckon up the trials, the heart-breaking, never-ending trials, which, during the first three hundred years of Christianity, the wife, or the child, the husband, the parent, or the domestic servant, who believed in Christ, must have endured, unknown to the world, from the unbelief and oppression of those, who were of their own household, and perhaps of their own flesh and blood. We may bring forward one example of this kind, the memory of which has been preserved. A female servant, a slave, named Agathoclia, had a Christian master whose wife was a heathen, and was very anxious to turn Agathoclia from her belief in the Gospel. For eight years was the poor woman forced to bear all the miseries that her cruel mistress could put upon her, till at last, as she would not submit, she was put to death, it is said, in the most barbarous manner. And

here it may be well to remark, the great temptation placed in the way of the unbelieving members of any family, to show their spite and hatred against that portion of it which had received the Gospel. About one hundred years after the birth of Christ, it was decreed by Trajan, emperor of Rome, that, although Christians should not be officiously sought after, still, whenever any person was informed against as a believer, he was to be put to death, if he refused to sacrifice to the gods*. This law continued to be in force for many years, and was occasionally acted upon in the quietest times of the early Church, though during the seasons of persecution, it was for a while set aside by the operation of others yet more harsh and unjust. It is plain how much power a law like this, placed in the hands of any one choosing to inform against such members of the household to which he belonged as were Christians. And even where this power was never made use of, we may imagine the suspicions, the fears, the threats, and the continual uneasiness, which the knowledge that such power was actually possessed, must have occasioned. "You may pluck the heart out of my body, but you

* A curious proof of the strange way in which persons running into quite opposite extremes sometimes agree in their views, occurs with regard to this law of Trajan. The over-zealous Christians were longing to die for the truth, and the heathen priests were thirsting after their blood, so that for both these classes Trajan's law was too moderate; and accordingly both classes did all that was in their power to set it aside.

cannot pluck the truth out of my heart," was the saying of one of those that suffered for Christ's truth. Such a saying bespeaks the firmest confidence in the strength of Christianity, and in the impossibility of that religion being rooted up. Time has shown that this confidence was not misplaced. The life-blood of thousands of faithful witnesses has been spilled, but the truth has not yet been plucked out of the heart of that Church of which Christ is the head, of that body of which they were members. And now the haters of truth are no longer able to attack it with force. They may, and do, use their tongues and their pens, but they cannot lift up their hands against its followers. Christ has triumphed over the princes and powers of the world; He did so before He would admit them to serve him. "He first felt their malice before He would make use of their defence, to show that it was not His necessity that required it, but His grace that admitted kings and queens to be nurses of the Church*." It was a noble wish that was uttered by a female martyr, when she beheld some of her fellow-sufferers being stoned to death, "That with you I may live in Heaven, with you may I perish on earth!" But without perishing as they did, we may ourselves hope to be even as they are. There are other trials besides the fiery trials of martyrdom for the Christian to endure and conquer,

Bishop Taylor's Sermons, Vol. I., Sermon ix., Part I., page 534, ed. London, 1826.