threatened to every altar and temple throughout the world. Its doctrines were not accommodating in any sense of the expression, but directly the reverse; truths were propounded beyond the wisdom of man fully to comprehend, such as the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Saviour, and salvation through him, which are confessedly preternatural discoveries, but to which we are required to yield assent. As to precepts, Christianity lays the axe at the root of every vice, inculcating the eternal obligation of the moral law, "a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness." No temporal inducements were offered to its followers, but persecutions and affliction foretold; and there was hardly a tribunal before which the primitive converts were not dragged, or a torture which they did not endure, and many sealed their testimony with their blood.
Though Jesus was lineally descended from
