The wonderful improvement produced by the gospel on the lives of multitudes by whom it was embraced, was, however, its most striking and cogent recommendation. The Christian authors who now published works in its defence, to many of which they gave the designation of _apologies_, and who sought, by means of these productions, either to correct the misrepresentations of its enemies, or to check the violence of persecution, always appeal with special confidence to this weighty testimonial. A veteran profligate converted into a sober and exemplary citizen was a witness for the truth whose evidence it was difficult either to discard or to depreciate. Nor were such vouchers rare either in the second or third century. A learned minister of the Church could now venture to affirm that Christian communities were to be found composed of men "_reclaimed from ten thousand vices,_" [276:1] and that these societies, compared with others around them, were "as lights in the world." [276:2] The practical excellence of the new faith is attested, still more circumstantially, by another of its advocates who wrote about half a century after the age of the apostles. "We," says he, "who formerly delighted in vicious excesses are now temperate and chaste; we, who once practised magical arts, have consecrated ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we, who once prized gain above all things, give even what we have to the common use, and share it with such as are in need; we, who once hated and murdered one another, who, on account of difference of customs, would have no common hearth with strangers, now, since the appearance of Christ, live together with them; we pray for our enemies; we seek to persuade those who hate us without cause to live conformably to the goodly precepts of Christ, that they may become partakers with us, of the joyful hope of blessings from God, the Lord of all." [277:1] When we consider that all the old superstitions had now become nearly effete, we cannot be surprised at the signal triumphs of a system which could furnish such noble credentials.