We may here pause to recollect how God had all along been bringing forth good out of seeming evil, in what concerned His Church. The first _dawnings of persecution_ drew down increased "boldness" in answer to thankful prayer; the first great necessity for exercising the _judicial office_ of the Church was followed by "great fear" and multiplied conversions, as well as by the first miracles of healing wrought in the Church; the first _schism_ was the occasion of the origin of the Order of Deacons, directly after which event we hear of "a great company of the priests being obedient to the Faith," {21} the first _martyrdom_ helped to bring about the conversion of the chief persecutor; and now the first _general persecution_ which came upon the Church was to have for its result a far more widely-spread diffusion of the knowledge of the Kingdom of God than had before taken place. [Sidenote: Extension of the Church according to our Lord's promise.] This extension of the Church was in exact accordance with our Lord's words to His Apostles just before His Ascension, that they should be witnesses unto Him "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." Jerusalem was already "filled with" their "doctrine," and now the disciples were "scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria," and "went every where preaching the Word[50]." [Sidenote: Still confined to Jews, and Samaritans, or to proselytes.] Still it would seem that they confined their preaching to such as were either Hebrews, or Grecians, i.e. foreigners more or less professing Judaism[51]; or, as in the case of the Samaritans, to such as were of mixed Jewish descent, and clung to the Law of Moses, though with manifold corruptions; or, again, to proselytes like the Ethiopian eunuch. The Apostles, we read, continued at Jerusalem, doubtless by God's command and under His special protection. [Sidenote: Conversion of Samaria.]