CHRISTIAN LIFE.--Passing within the sphere of Christian life, there can be no doubt that Christianity exerted a power, of which there had been no experience before, in reforming the character and conduct of those even who had been addicted to crime and vice. The fraternal feeling of Christians for one another impressed the heathen about them as something new and singularly attractive. It expressed itself in unstinted charity for those in poverty, and in helpfulness for all sorts of distress. The church was a home for the weary and friendless. In the strong reaction against the sensuality of a dissolute society, ascetic tendencies appeared, which, in process of time, issued in monasticism. _Anthony_ of Thebes, born about 250, was one of the earliest and most celebrated of the _Anchorites_, who chose a hermit life, and abjured all the luxuries of life and most of the comforts which belong to social existence. To the _Anchorites_ succeeded the _Caenobites_, societies of monks who dwelt in a common habitation under fixed rules; and these were naturally followed by _confederacies_ of such communities under one organization. The monastic vows were _poverty_, or the renunciation of property; _celibacy_, or abstinence from marriage; and _obedience_ to the conventual superior. Sometimes in the early centuries great evils and abuses sprang up in connection with monastic life. For example, monks might become fanatical and violent. But they furnished numerous examples of sincere piety, and of unselfish and intrepid self-sacrifice for the welfare of others. CHANGES IN WORSHIP.--As the Church grew in numbers and wealth, costly edifices were constructed for worship. The services within them became more elaborate. At length art was called in to adorn the Christian sanctuaries. Sculpture and painting were enlisted in the work of providing aids to devotion. Relics of saints and martyrs were cherished as sacred possessions. Religious observances were multiplied; and the Church, under the Christian emperors, with its array of clergy and of imposing ceremonies, assumed much of the stateliness and visible splendor that had belonged to the heathen system which it had supplanted.