"You have taken the right course, my Pliny, in your proceedings with those who have been brought before you as Christians; for it is impossible to establish any one rule that shall hold universally. They are not to be sought after. If any are brought before you, and are convicted, they ought to be punished. However, he that denies his being a Christian, and makes it evident in fact, that is, by supplication to our gods, though he be suspected to have been so formerly, let him be pardoned upon repentance. But in no case of any crime whatever, may a bill of information be received without being signed by him who presents it. For that would be a dangerous precedent, and unworthy of my government." Now let us read the First General Epistle of Peter, the First General Epistle of John, and the second and third chapters of Revelation and we will be able to see the force of the various allusions, to the numbers, doctrines, morals and persecutions of the Saints as mentioned in this letter. The doctrines of the Christian faith then are not the gradual growth of centuries, as the infidel would make us believe. On the other hand the primitive churches possessed a perfection of doctrine and organization unknown to the so-called Christian churches of the present day. In the life time {112} of those who had seen the Savior crucified, and in countries a thousand miles distant from Jerusalem, we find the Saints scattered over Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, as well as in the world's proud capital, the city of Rome. In this letter also we have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by giving such information as they knew would be acceptable to the persecuting governor, the testimony of the two servants under torture, and the unwilling, yet express testimony; of their torturer, that all his cruel ingenuity could discover nothing worse than what he called "a bad and excessive superstition." Now, what was it that this heathen governor called a "superstition?" Why simply that they bound themselves by the most solemn religious services, not to be guilty of theft, robbery or adultery; not to falsify their word nor deny a pledge committed to them; and when a statue of the emperor was presented to them they refused to make supplication to it. For this refusal, and this alone, he ordered them away to death. And as these martyrs went away to torture and to death, may they not have heard tingling in their ears the words of Peter which had been written to them a few years previous: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters" (_I. Peter iv_, 12-15). Pliny says that there were apostates twenty years previous, that is in the year 86. Now does not {113} that exactly coincide with