Such were some of the difficulties which had to be surmounted before this new institution could be firmly planted among the existing societies of the world, and expand itself with the life which was peculiarly its own. If the primitive followers of Jesus were animated by the credulous superstition which unbelievers delight in attributing to them, none should be better qualified than they to form a judgment of the difficulties which must have beset their path. Yet these have been surmounted. To this fact the vigorous life of the Church during eighteen centuries testifies. It has not only held its ground, but it has succeeded in leavening all existing civilizations with its influences. How has this been accomplished? The Apostolic Epistles return an answer. They affirm that the early converts were endowed with a number of supernatural gifts, exactly fitted to qualify them for the various functions which they were called upon to discharge. I subjoin a list of them, as they are directly affirmed by St. Paul to be then existing in the Corinthian Church. They were nine in number, each of which is asserted by him to have had a distinct and separate function and subject‐matter: the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, working of miracles, endowments of healing powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, and interpretation. It does not appear whether this last is meant to be exhaustive of the supernatural mental endowments which the members of the early churches supposed themselves to possess, or whether they were varied for the purpose of meeting particular exigences. Nor do I ask those with whom I am reasoning to accept this statement as a true account of an objective fact; but only that they were supposed to be so by the Apostle and those to whom he wrote. It is plain, however, that these supernatural endowments, if real, were precisely such as the Church was in urgent need of, as the instrumentality for welding together the discordant elements of which it was composed, and enabling it firmly to plant itself in the soil of human nature.