could then expand and expatiate under its influence, that it planted its roots so deeply in the hearts of men. To all these elements of attraction, others of a different order must be added. Christianity was not merely a moral influence, or a system of opinions, or an historical record, or a collection of wonder-working men; it was also an institution definitely, elaborately, and skilfully organised, possessing a weight and a stability which isolated or undisciplined teachers could never rival, and evoking, to a degree before unexampled in the world, an enthusiastic devotion to its corporate welfare, analogous to that of the patriot to his country. The many forms of Pagan worship were pliant in their nature. Each offered certain advantages or spiritual gratifications; but there was no reason why all should not exist together, and participation in one by no means implied disrespect to the others. But Christianity was emphatically exclusive; its adherent was bound to detest and abjure the faiths around him as the workmanship of dæmons, and to consider himself placed in the world to destroy them. Hence there sprang a stern, aggressive, and at the same time disciplined enthusiasm, wholly unlike any other that had been witnessed upon earth. The duties of public worship; the sacraments, which were represented as the oaths of the Christian warrior; the fasts and penances and commemorative days, which strengthened the Church feeling; the intervention of religion in the most solemn epochs of life, conspired to sustain it. Above all, the doctrine of salvation by belief, which then for the first time flashed upon the world; the persuasion, realised with all the vividness of novelty, that Christianity opened out to its votaries eternal happiness, while all beyond its pale were doomed to an eternity of torture, supplied a motive of action as powerful as it is perhaps possible to conceive. It struck alike the coarsest chords of hope and fear, and the finest chords of compassion and love. The polytheist, admitting that Christianity might possibly be true, was led by a mere calculation of prudence to embrace it, and the fervent Christian would shrink from no suffering to draw those whom he loved within its pale. Nor were other inducements wanting. To the confessor was granted in the Church a great and venerable authority, such as the bishop could scarcely claim.(736) To the martyr, besides the fruition of heaven, belonged the highest glory on earth. By winning that bloodstained crown, the meanest Christian slave might gain a reputation as glorious as that of a Decius or a Regulus. His body was laid to rest with a sumptuous splendour;(737) his relics, embalmed or shrined, were venerated with an almost idolatrous homage. The anniversary of his birth into another life was commemorated in the Church, and before the great assembly of the saints his heroic sufferings were recounted.(738) How, indeed, should he not be envied? He had passed away into eternal bliss.