The leading method employed anciently to impede the progress of christianity was to persecute its adherents. This scheme of opposition was well tried during the first three centuries of the christian era, but, although it, to some extent, gratified the malice of the persecutors, it was never very successful. There is a very plain reason for this. The tendency of persecution is invariably to lead the disciples of our Lord, to examine the ground of their faith and the value of their profession with great care; and when this is done, there is but little danger of “departing from the holy commandment delivered to us.” Nothing has ever caused men to scrutinize their profession and the whole premises thereof, in such a candid and solemn manner as the severe persecutions imposed upon the early followers of our Lord; and yet it is an important truth, that, during these severe persecutions, apostasies were comparatively few. This is not all. Persecution has always led the true followers of Christ to plead for the claims of the cause with greater power. Men, when speaking in a cause and their lives at stake, speak from the very bottom of their hearts, and exert every power with which they are possessed to make an impression. At such times there is no dull formality, but all is life and interest. Every one feels what he saying and doing. There is no sermonizing, no preaching by the day, but every man carries the cause in his bosom, and labors as for eternity. All this is calculated to defeat the ostensible intention of all persecution, and in the place of impeding the progress of the cause must tend to spread it. Not only so, but persecution has a tendency to diminish worldly-mindedness, and cause the entire affairs of this life to appear transient and fleeting. Its constant bearing, like all sufferings in this life, is to direct the christian mind to another world, where the bondage of corruption shall be put off, and where he shall enjoy pleasures for evermore. Under such circumstances, how the mind is filled with piety, and how the spirit adorns the redeeming love which, through Jesus Christ, has brought the tidings of deliverance! Finding no abatement of persecutions here, no mitigation of suffering, the afflicted pilgrim looks to another world for a home—for a city upon the immovable rock, the maker and builder of which is God, where he anticipates he will enter the eternal rest. In all this, the effect is precisely the opposite of what is intended by persecutors. They intend to cause people to abandon christianity by persecuting them, whereas it only causes them to esteem it more sacred and press it more closely to their hearts.