" "Behold," He says, "I send
you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves"; "ye shall be hated of all
men for My sake"; "if any man will come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." His own life was one of
unparalleled contumely, and He told them they must not expect to fare
better than their Master. Nor did they. The majority of the apostles
met cruel deaths after lives of suffering. Paul, describing his
experience, speaks of his beatings and his perils among his countrymen
and the heathen, of his hunger and thirst and his cold and nakedness.
And his was only an extreme example of the common lot of the early
generations of Christians. Yet in the face of the hostility of the
whole Roman and Jewish world, manifested in the most cruel
persecutions, Christianity rapidly grew, gaining its most signal
triumphs, laying hold of the consciences and transforming the lives of
men. It was only when it came under the patronage of the civil
government, and the public opinion of the world was thrown in its
favor, and its peculiar doctrines became diluted with worldly policy,
that it began to lose its reforming influence--a fact which Mr.
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