We shall find the early Christians no exception to the operation of this influence of repose. Whenever it was accorded them, either through the mercy or the indifference of the emperors, internal dissensions, the intrigues of aspiring prelates and the rise of heresies characterized those periods. Even Milner, who wrote his great work to counteract the influence of the too candid Mosheim; who takes to task other ecclesiastical writers for making too much of the wickedness that has existed in the church; who declares in the introduction of his Church History that genuine piety is the only thing he intends to celebrate, and announces it to be his purpose to write the history of those men only, irrespective of the external church to which they belonged, who have been real not nominally Christians [1]--even Milner, I say, admits and deplores the mischief wrought by these periods of peace which came to the church between the storms of persecution which plagued it; and refers in several places to the marked and steady declension of the Christian spirit in those centuries with which at present I am dealing. He admits that a gloomy cloud hung over the conclusion of the first century; and argues that the first impressions made by the effusion of the spirit are generally the strongest; that human depravity, overborn for a time, arises afresh, particularly in the next generation--hence the disorders of schism and heresy that arose in the church, the tendency of which was to destroy the work of God. [2] The same writer upon the authority of Origen says that the long peace granted the church in the third century produced a great degree of luke-warmness and religious indecorum. "Let the reader," says he, "only notice the indifference which he [Origen] here describes, and the conduct of the Christians both in the first and second century, and he will be affected with the greatness of the declension." Then follows the picture drawn by Origen: "Several come to church only on solemn festivals; and then not so much for instruction as diversion. Some go out again as soon as they have heard the lecture, without conferring or asking the pastors questions. Others stay not till the lecture is ended; and others hear not so much as a single word; but entertain themselves in a corner of the church."