“I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,” said Christ. They accepted the mission. In the thronged streets of the city, like Paul at Athens, while some gnashed their teeth with rage, and others heard them gladly, they proclaimed salvation through faith in an atoning Saviour. Two and two they penetrated the villages, and wandered through the sparsely-settled country, with the sublime and astounding doctrine, that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, had suffered upon the cross to make an atonement for sin; and that now all who wished to reach heaven were to acknowledge this Saviour, and live according to his teachings, at whatever hazard. Thus, notwithstanding the persecutions, converts were multiplied. For every one who was slain, perhaps two rose to take his place. The persecutors themselves, like Saul of Tarsus, often became converts, and preached that faith which they had once endeavored to destroy. Even the unbelieving Gibbon, who seldom loses an opportunity to show his hostility to the religion of Jesus, admits that the zeal of the early Christians in preaching the gospel, their fortitude under the most dreadful sufferings, the purity of their morals, and their love for one another, were among the potent influences which enabled Christianity to triumph over the imperial power of the Cæsars and the malignity of the mob, to overthrow all the gorgeous altars of paganism, and to establish itself firmly upon the ruins of the most imposing system of idolatry the world has ever known. CHAPTER XIV. INVASION CIVIL WAR, AND UNRELENTING PERSECUTION. Æmilianus and Valerian.――Barbaric Hordes.――Slavery and its Retribution.――Awful Fate of Valerian.――Ruin of the Roman Empire.――Zenobia and her Captivity.――The Slave Diocletian becomes Emperor.――His Reign, Abdication, Death.――Division of the Empire.――Terrible Persecution.――The Glory of Christianity. ――Characteristics of the First Three Centuries.――Abasement of Rome. ABOUT this time, near the close of the third century of the Christian era, the barbarians who surrounded the Roman empire commenced with great vigor their resistless ravages. Along the whole line of the Danube, they swarmed in locust legions across the frontiers. Still the infatuated Romans, instead of combining against the common foe, were wasting their energies in persecuting the Christians and in desolating civil wars. A Roman general, by the name of Æmilianus, was in command of the army upon the Danube. His soldiers had chosen him emperor. There was another Roman army in France, then called Gaul. This Gallic army chose their general, Valerian, emperor. These two hostile forces marched to settle the question on the field of battle. As the antagonistic hosts drew near each other, the soldiers of Æmilianus, deeming the opposite army the stronger, murdered their general, whom they had chosen emperor, and, with loud huzzas, rallied around the banner of Valerian.