One of Diocletian's coins commemorates the blotting out of the very name of Christian: "Nomine Christianorum deleto." But the age of martyrdoms ended with the accession of Constantine to the Roman empire, and to-day there are more Christians in the world than ever before. Skeptic, take one long look at the unbelieving, bloody, persecuting hosts, and choose your future associates. Strauss says: "No man knows who wrote the Gospels." Can he mean that they are anonymous books? Does he mean that they are not biographies--books containing, in their historic matter, an account of the authors _themselves_? Who does not know that those books are and have been called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? And who has, in all the past centuries, produced evidence showing that those are the wrong names. No one. Insane men might say such a thing. Infidels don't like to say that; they just say you can't prove your religion, nor show that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote those books. Will any sensible man affirm that they are the wrong names? How do we judge and believe respecting the authorship of other ancient books? Why do we believe that Caesar wrote the Commentaries on the Gallic War? And why do we believe that Virgil wrote the AEneid? No sane man ever doubted the authorship of those writings. Preoccupancy during the ages past is considered by infidels themselves a sufficient ground for belief. The fact that those books exist has certainly been known from the age of the apostles to the present time, for men quoted extensively from them in the second century. The names they bear were in the possessive case then, and it is but fair to consider them the true owners. Why are skeptics and infidels so partial among ancient books? They doubt the authorship of no ancient books unless they are written in favor of the religion of Christ. Will some wise one tell us why this strange inconsistency? O, it is an evidence of a wicked heart--that's all! all!!--ALL THERE IS OF IT!!! Here are the dates of the books of the New Testaments, along with contemporary landmarks: