Amid all the differences of opinion and doctrine that we find among the early founders of Christianity, there was one thing on which they were unanimous, and that was the attitude toward children. It was a ceaseless war they waged in behalf of children—those early and ofttimes eloquent founders. From Barnabas, contemporary of the Apostles, and by Luke even called one of them, to Ambrosius and Augustine, they did not cease to denounce those who, no matter what their reasons, exposed or killed infants. [Illustration: “SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME”] No distinction was made by the Fathers between infanticide and exposure.[369] Both were murderous acts, particularly bitterly condemned by the Christians because their enemies had charged them with murdering infants at secret rites. The letter attributed to Barnabas by Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and which in any case goes back to the earliest days of the religion, severely condemned infanticide. “Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion, nor again shalt thou destroy it after it is born.”[370] By such protests as these, made with one cannot tell what frequency, the Christians took their stand on the basic principles. Justin, whose vigorous manner of addressing the Emperor is so attractive, succumbed, at the age of seventy-four, to the calumnies of the cynic Crescentius, and became a martyr; but his example and fervour left an indelible mark upon his time. “As for us,” he says, “we have been taught that to expose newly born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do any one an injury, and lest we should sin against God; first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution.... Now we see you rear children only for this shameful use; and for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm.”[371] And again he says: “We fear to expose children, lest some of them be not picked up, but die, and we become murderers. But whether we marry, it is only that we may bring up children; or whether we decline marriage, we live continently.”[372] Athanagoras,[373] the Athenian philosopher, who presented to Marcus Aurelius and to Commodus an apology for the Christians, in 166 A.D., asked the logical Romans to use their famous common sense in weighing false charges made against Christians. “What man of sound mind,” he said, “will affirm that we, who abhor murder, are murderers; we who condemn as murder the use of drugs for abortion, and declare that those who even expose a child are chargeable with murder.”[374] Tertullian, whose apology was written in the year 200, or 205, of our era, was equally bold.