church, or that he would not train him by such signs and regulations, if he had not provided already a sure path for him in the Holy Scriptures, where he must look for no visible miracle, but accustom himself to hope in the invisible, and be admonished, not asleep, but awake."

In others, a spirit of religious inquiry was aroused by the inclination of their inner life; by their doubts respecting the heathen religion, in which they had been educated; by their intercourse with Christians, and by particulars which they had heard of Christianity. Before applying to a minister of religion for instruction, they had examined much themselves in the Scriptures, they had imparted their mental exercises to whomsoever they were able, and with whom they could confer. Hence it became Christians to be always prepared to give a reason of their faith from the Scriptures; for many an inquiring heathen who had not courage to lay his doubts before a bishop or any other ecclesiastic, turned in confidence to a Christian friend among the laity, revealed to him his restless, agitated heart, and sought from him a solution of his doubts. But what could such a friend do, if hitherto the Bible had been to himself a sealed book; if he had not yet earnestly reflected on his own faith? In reference to such cases that sometimes occurred, Augustin said to his flock: A harassed friend comes to thee, who is unable to find that truth by the knowledge of which he may be saved. Wearied by all the desires and by all the poverty of the world, he comes to thee as to a Christian, and says: 'Give me a rational account of thy faith-make me a Christian.' And he asks thee after what, in the simplicity of thy faith, thou hast not to give him, and thou hast nothing to refresh the hungry soul. And reminded from without, thou art made sensible of thy own destitution, and then thou wilt learn; then thou wilt first be obliged to learn, and because thou art put to shame before him who has asked thee, but has not found in thee what he sought; thou wilt be impelled to seek, and thereby make thyself worthy to find: and where must thou seek? Where else, but in the books of the Lord? Perhaps that which he inquires after, stands somewhere in Holy Writ; but it is obscure. Perhaps Paul has said it in one of his epistles. But he has so said it, that thou canst read it but canst not understand it. And thou canst not pass it over, for the questioner

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presses it upon thee; thou canst not ask Paul or Peter himself, or one of the prophets, for already they rest with their Lord; but the ignorance of this world is great, and thy hungry friend presses upon thee. A bare simple faith perhaps satisfies thee; but it does not satisfy him. Must thou abandon him? Must thou turn him out of thy house? Therefore apply by prayer to the Lord himself, to the Lord with whom the apostles and prophets rest; call upon him, cease not. He will not, like the friend in the parable, arise and give, merely because wearied out by thy importunity. He will give to thee. Hast thou knocked, and not yet received? Knock again, he will give thee. He delays to give what he means to give thee, that thy longing may be more intense. Learn and teach; love and impart nourishment.”

Hence the zealous doctors of the church, such as Chrysostom, always impressed on the laity the duty of making themselves accurately acquainted with the Scriptures, in order to be in a position to give the heathen a rational account of their faith, and to explain the divine word to them. They justly observed, that the bishops, by their homilies and lectures, could effect little in this respect, unless the laity, among whom the heathen lived, operated upon them in their daily intercourse by their words and by their lives. Thus Chrysostom, in one of his homilies, after explaining to his hearers the arguments by which to oppose the attacks of the heathen on Christianity, says: "But give good heed, for it is something astonishing that the physician should know how to argue ably for his art, and even the shoemaker and the weaver, and others of any trade or art whatever, and yet that he who calls himself a Christian should not be able to give a rational account of his faith! And yet this relates to things of the highest moment, what concerns the soul, and is necessary to its salvation. And this is the reason why the heathen do not sooner attain to a knowledge of their errors; for if they who advocate falsehood employ every means to conceal the worthlessness of their doctrine, but we who profess to do homage to the truth cannot once open our mouths in its defence, will they not charge our doctrine with great weakness? We incur the guilt of their blasphemies when we treat the matters of faith as secondary objects and those of earth as primary."

In another homily he also says:* "On this account God permits us to remain in the world that we be as lights (Phil. ii. 15); that we may be teachers of others; that we may be a leaven; that we may walk as angels among men, or as men with little children; as spiritual men with the carnallyminded, that they may be profited; that we may be as seeds, and bring forth much fruit. Words are not needed, if our lives shine forth. There is no need of teachers, if we exhibit our works. No one would be a heathen, if we were Christians as we ought to be. If we keep the commands of Christ-if we suffer wrong-if we are defrauded—if, being reproached, we bless-if, being ill-treated, we do good-no one would be so brutish as not to hasten to piety, if all its professors acted thus. And that ye may know it, consider Paul was only one man, and how many did he convert to the faith! If we were all likeminded, how many people should we not gain? Behold, there are more Christians than heathens, and in other arts one man can instruct a hundred boys at once. But here, where the teachers are far more numerous, and the scholars fewer, no one comes to school; for the scholars look at the virtue of the teachers. And if they see that we desire the same things, that we strive to rule and to be honoured, how can they admire Christianity? They see persons among us full of faults, earthly-minded; we admire riches as much as they do, and even far more; we fear death, poverty, sickness, like themselves; we are the slaves of circumstances. On what grounds, then, can they believe? On account of miracles? But such things do not occur. Must love beaming upon them lead them to the faith? But of this a trace is nowhere to be found. Therefore we are answerable, not only for our own sins, but for the faults of others." And Augustin says

* Διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ ἡμᾶς εἴασεν, ἵνα ὡς φωστῆρες ὦμεν, ἵνα διδάσ καλοι τῶν ἄλλων καταστῶμεν, ἵν ̓ ὡς ζύμη γενώμεθα, ἵν ̓ ὡς ἄγγελοι μετά τῶν ἀνθρώπων περιπολῶμεν, ἵν ̓ ὡς ἄνδρες μετὰ τῶν παίδων τῶν μικρῶν, ὡς πνευματικοὶ μετὰ τῶν ψυχικῶν, ἵνα κερδαίνωσιν ἐκεῖνοι, ἵνα σπέρματα ὦμεν, ἵνα καρπὸν πολὺν φέρωμεν. Οὐκ ἔδει λόγων, ει τοσοῦτον ἡμῶν ὁ βίος ἔλαμπεν. Οὐκ ἔδει διδασκάλων, εἰ ἔργα ἐπεδεικο νύμεθα· οὐδεὶς ἄν ἦν Ἕλλην, εἰ ἡμεῖς ὦμεν Χριστιανοὶ, ὡς δεῖ. Εἰ τὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐφυλάττομεν, εἰ ἠδικούμεθα, εἰ κακῶς πάσχοντες εὐεργε τούμεν, οὐδεὶς οὕτω θηρίον ἦν, ὡς μὴ ἐπιδραμεῖν τῇ εὐσεβείᾳ, εἰ παρὰ TaνTWV TAŬTA Èyívero.—Chrysost. in 1 Tim. 10, § 3.

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to his church: "Which of the true believers does not an

nounce Christ? Do you believe that we only who stand here announce Christ, and that you do not announce him? Whence do persons come to us to become Christians whom we have never seen or known, to whom we have never preached? Have they come to the faith without its being announced to them by any one? The Apostle says: How shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?' (Rom. x. 14.) Therefore the whole church announces Christ. All believers are the heavens which declare the glory of God,' whose care it is to win unbelievers for God, and who do this from love. God permits the terrors of his judgment to sound forth from them, the unbeliever trembles and believes. Show men what Christ can effect in the whole world when you preach to them, and lead them to the love of Christ. Seize, lead, snatch whomsoever you can; be sure that you lead them to him who cannot but delight those who behold him; and pray to him that he would enlighten them."

6

We have seen, in the example of Nonna, how in a mixed marriage, pious women, who let Christianity shine forth in their lives, could gradually exert the incalculably attractive power of the divine for the conversion of their husbands, by the immediate impression of their whole conduct still more than by words; in which reference the Apostle Paul says of a heathen husband that he is sanctified by his Christian wife; an incalculable, operative principle of sanctification was thus implanted in the marriage relation. And when such wives could not overcome the unsusceptibility of their husbands, still they succeeded in scattering at an early age the seeds of Christianity in the hearts of their children. This seed often produced a great effect on the inner life, and though this effect was for a long time oppressed by the distractions and business of the world, yet often, when the storm was allayed, it brought forth rich fruit, as is shown in the memorable instance of Augustin, whose youthful heart had received early christian impressions by the instructions of his pious mother. After passing through many storms and conflicts and doubts for a series of years, by which he was borne hither and thither, he looked off from the path he was treading to that

religion which had been implanted in his childhood and entered his inmost soul, and which without his being aware drew him to itself. The Emperor Julian acknowledged how the influence of females counterworked his plans for the re-introduction of heathenism. He lamented that the heathen in Antioch permitted their wives to carry everything out of their houses for the support of the poor Christians, while they themselves would not make use of the least thing for the worship of the gods. And the rhetorician Libanius, a heathen, made this excuse for the Christians who having through fear and other causes passed over to heathenism, afterwards repented and sought to repair their apostacy, "that they were turned round at home by their wives and their tears, and led away from the altars.'

The means by which the heathen were brought to Christianity must have been very various, and must indeed have varied according to the nature of the hindrances that opposed their conversion. These were outward and inward. The outward hindrances were in the condition of the church at that time and of the public Christian life, which was no longer the same as in the first century, as is testified by the passage already quoted from Chrysostom; the inward hindrances were in the various modes of thinking and mental tendencies of the heathen, in which we recognize the same tendencies which in all ages have opposed the reception of Christianity. As in the first century the genuine Christian life, as a living witness of the power of the gospel, operated powerfully in favour of its extension, so now the inconsistent lives of so many nominal Christians gave occasion for the name of the Lord to be blasphemed among the heathen. "Look at the heathen," says Augustin, "sometimes they meet with good Christians who serve God; they admire such, and are attracted to the faith. Sometimes they see those whose lives are bad, and they exclaim, 'These are your Christians!"" And Chrysostom says, in the homily last quoted, "As a blind man cannot call the sun dark, for he would be ashamed to contradict what every body acknowledges to be true,- -so no one complains of the truly good; on account of their doctrine the heathen may blame such persons, but they will not attack their good life, but join with others in admiring it." In many respects, though not