But look at the historic evidence on the subject long before the establishment of Christianity. Is it possible for any candid person to read the Epistle of Pliny to Trajan, and not see in that alone, after making every deduction for any supposed bias under which the letter may have been written (though, in fact, it is difficult to suppose any bias that would not rather lead the writer to diminish the number of the Christians than to exaggerate it),--is it possible, I say, to read that singular state paper, and not feel that the new religion had made prodigious progress in that remote province? and that, a fortiori, if in Bithynia it had conquered its thousands of proselytes, in other and more favored provinces it must have gained its tens of thousands? To me the letter of Pliny speaks volumes; and if so much could be said at so early a period as A. D. 107, what was the state of things two centuries later? Precisely the same conclusion must be arrived at if we consult the uniform tone of the Christian apologists, from Justin Martyr to Minucius Felix. Making here, again, what deductions you please for the fervid eloquence and rhetorical exaggerations of such a man as Tertullian, it is too much to suppose even his "African" impetuosity would have ventured, not merely on the virulent invective, the bold taunts, with which he everywhere assails the popular superstitions, but on such strong assertions of the triumphant progress of the upstart religion, unless there had been obvious approximation to truth in his statements. "We were but of yesterday," says he, "and we have filled your cities, islands, towns, and assemblies; the camp, the senate, the palace, and the forum swarm with converts to Christianity." Apologist for Christianity! Unless these words had been enforced by very much of truth, he would have made Christianity simply ridiculous; and Christians would have been necessitated to apologize for their mad apologist. The same conclusion equally follows from the consideration of those very corruptions of Christianity, which no candid student of ecclesiastical history will be slow to admit had already infected it, many years before Constantine ventured to aid it by his equivocal patronage. It was obviously its triumphant progress,--its attraction to itself of much wealth,--the accession, to a considerable extent, of fashion, rank, and power,--that chiefly caused those corruptions. So long as the Christian Church was poor and despised, such scenes as often attended the election of bishops in the great cities of the empire would be quite impossible.