Let it not be a matter of surprise that I class those persecutions as among the means through which the church was destroyed. The force of heathen rage was aimed at the leaders and strong men of the body religious; and being long-continued and relentlessly cruel, those most steadfast in their adherence to the church invariably became its victims. These being stricken down, it left none but weaklings to contend for the faith, and made possible those subsequent innovations in the religion of Jesus which a pagan public sentiment demanded, and which so completely changed both the spirit and form of the Christian religion as to subvert it utterly. Let me further ask that no one be surprised that violence is permitted to operate in such a case. The idea that the right is always victorious in this world; that truth is always triumphant and innocence always divinely protected, are old, fond fables with which well-meaning men have amused credulous multitudes; but the stern facts of history and actual experience in life correct the pleasing delusion. Do not misunderstand me. I believe in the ultimate victory of the right, the ultimate triumph of truth, the final immunity of innocence from violence. These--innocence, truth and the right--will be at the last more than conquerors; they will be successful in the war, but that does not prevent them from losing some battles. It should be remembered always that God has given to man his agency; and that fact implies that one man is as free to act wickedly as another is to do righteousness. Cain was as free to murder his brother as that brother was to worship God; and so the pagans and Jews were as free to persecute and murder the Christians as the Christians were to live virtuously and worship Christ as God. The agency of man would not be worth the name if it did not grant liberty to the wicked to fill the cup of their iniquity, as well as liberty to the virtuous to round out the measure of their righteousness. Such perfect liberty or agency God has given man; and it is only so variously modified as not to thwart his general purposes. Hence it comes that even when stealthy Murder in sight of his helpless victim meditates the crime, no voice to prevent the act "speaks through the blanket of the dark" crying, "Hold! hold!" Of course it follows that running parallel with this fact of man's liberty is the solemn truth of his full responsibility for the use he makes of it. In the light of these reflections, then, I say that after Christ, as before his day, the kingdom of heaven suffered violence and the violent took it by force. [1] How far that violence, as manifested in the persecutions of the first three Christian centuries, was effectual as a factor in causing the destruction of the church is now to engage our attention.