Each had been bent on improving his own patrimony, and had forgotten what believers had done under the Apostles, and what they ought always to do. They were brooding over the arts of amassing wealth; the pastors and the deacons each forgot his duty; works of mercy were neglected, and discipline was at the lowest ebb; luxury and effeminacy prevailed; meretricious arts in dress were cultivated; fraud and deception practiced among brthren Christians would unite themselves in matrimony with unbelievers; could swear, not only without reverence but even without veracity. With haughty asperity they despised their ecclesiastical superiors! They railed against one another with outrageous acrimony, and conducted quarrels with determined malice. Even many bishops, who ought to be guides and patterns to thhe rest, neglected the peculiar duties of their stations, gave themselves up to secular pursuits. They deserted their places of residence and their flocks; they traveled through distant provinces in quest of pleasure and gain; have no assistance to their needy brethren, but were insatiable in their thirst of money. They possessed estates by fraud and multiplied usury. What have we deserved to suffer for such conduct? Even the divine word hath foretold us that we might expect: "If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, I will visit their offenses with the rod and their sins with scourges." These things had ben denounced and foretold, but in vain. Our sins had brought our affairs to that pass, that because we had despised the Lord's directions, we were obliged to undergo a correction of our multiplied evils and a trial of our faith be severe remedies.[A] [Footnote A: Ibid.] Referring to the long reign of peace in the closing decades of the third century, Milner says: This new [the toleration of Christianity by a pagan government] did not prove favorable to the growth of grave and holiness. In no period since the Apostles was there ever so great a general decay as in this. Not even in particular instances can we discover during this interval much of lively Christianity.[A] [Footnote A: Milner's Ch. Hist., vol. I, cent, iii, ch. xvii.] Here I drop Milner to take up Eusebius, who was an eyewitness of the moral declension among the Christians previous to the last great pagan persecution under the emperor Diocletian. Referring to the long period of peace which the Church had enjoyed--a period of forty years--he says: