In regard to the true history of our church during the three first centuries, we know nothing whatever, except that which comes through the most polluted channels; for the traditions and fabulous writings of the fathers who lived in those periods, are not deserving of the slightest credit; these men being notorious for nothing but pious frauds and forgeries; yet even in these professional arts they were far excelled in the following century, by the famous Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, who had no equal in fitting up and trimming off a "word of God," to suit the general interests of the church. He says of himself "I have related whatever might redound to the glory, and I have _suppressed _all that could tend to the disgrace of our religion." Baronius, who was a sincere advocate of the Christian faith, branded him as "the great falsifier of ecclesiastical history--a wily sycophant--a consummate hypocrite*--a time-serving persecutor, who had nothing in his known life or writings, to support the belief _that he himself believed in the Christian religion_." So much for the character of this main pillar of the church. Another father of the fourth century, St. Gregory Nazianzen, was of opinion that "_words are sufficient to deceive the vulgar, who admire the more, the less they understand._" Again, he says, "Our fathers and teachers have often said, _not what they thought_, but what circumstances required." To show that the saints of the fourth century had not only improved upon their predecessors in the arts of deception, but had grown bold enough in some instances to avow them, we quote St. Chrysostom, who declares that "miracles are proper only to excite sluggish and vulgar minds; that men of sense have no occasion for them; and that they frequently carry _some untoward suspicion with them_" Mosheim, than whom a higher authority cannot be quoted, speaking of those times and of such men, says: "The simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those times, furnished the most favorable occasion for the exercise of fraud; and the impudence of impostors in contriving false miracles, was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar: whilst the sagacity of the wise, who perceived these cheats, were overawed into silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they should expose the artifice. Thus does it generally happen in human life, that, when danger attends the discovery of truth, and the profession thereof, the prudent are _silent_--the multitude _believe_, and impostors _triumph_"--(Eccles. Hist.)