And many did yield--of this there is no doubt. The number of martyrs who resisted unto death no doubt is very great, much greater than the cold and passionless critic chooses to acknowledge, but the number of those who did yield was no doubt considerable. It was indeed a title to honour for a magistrate of Rome publicly to win over one or more of these confessors of the New Religion, to succeed in persuading some well-known Christian to scatter on the altar of the deified Emperor, or of the popular image of Mars the Avenger, or of Diana, or of the yet greater Jupiter, a few grains of incense typifying his return to the ancient pagan cult--or better still, to extract a few reluctant words in which the adored Christ was renounced and abandoned. Such a judicial victory was ever a signal triumph for the Roman pagan judge. It would speedily bear its fruits and rally to the drooping standard of paganism a number of men and women pondering, doubting, hesitating on the threshold of Christianity; a threshold with such an example of recantation before them, which they would surely never cross! And these scenes during the long years of active persecution were acted again and again. The war between the religion of Christ and the old idol-cult so dear to Rome and her subject millions was indeed a protracted and deadly combat, and, as far as men could see, the issue for long years trembled in the balance. And all this time much--more than men now think--hung on the grave and solemn question of martyrdom. It was an outward and visible sign of that new wonderful revelation which was influencing so many different minds, which was working restlessly in such varied classes, in Rome, and in the many provinces of the world of Rome, which from the early days of its appearance in the great Empire, began at once to work a mighty change in all ranks in all society where it penetrated, and every year it penetrated deeper. The New Revelation was taught by an ever-increasing band of teachers, fervid, impassioned, eloquent--some of them learned and cultivated. It possessed too a literature which gradually increased in volume and power--a literature which was founded upon “a Record” which these teachers affirmed issued from no workshops of this earth. But all this literature, powerful, soul-stirring though it was, only touched, comparatively speaking, a very few of the men and women who made up the mighty world of Rome. The great mass of the peoples of the Empire neither read the books nor heard the words of the teachers of the New Religion. _Something more_ was needed to touch the masses of the people--_something_ thousands might see and hear of; something they might see for themselves. That something was supplied by the noble army of martyrs. * * * * * From the first days of the appearance of the new teaching the imperial government of Rome was determined, if possible, to stamp it out of the society which Rome controlled.