I
LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN IN THE EARLY DAYS
There is no shadow of doubt but that in a comparatively
short space of time the religion of Jesus was accepted
by great numbers of the dwellers in the various provinces
of the Roman Empire. This fact is abundantly testified
to by contemporary writers, Christian and pagan.
The only other widely professed religion with which we can compare it—Mahommedanism—owed its rapid progress and the extraordinary numbers of its proselytes mainly to the sword of the conquerors. Christianity, on the other hand, possessed no army to enforce its tenets. It was not even the heritage of a people or a nation. The Jews, to whom in the first days of its existence it might have belonged, were very soon to be reckoned among its deadliest foes.
One powerful factor which influenced the reception of the new religion has been rarely dwelt upon, but it deserves more than a merely passing notice.
The news of the religion of Jesus, as by many channels it reached the slave, often a highly educated slave, the freedman, the merchant, the small trader, the soldier of the legions, the lawyer, the Roman patrician, the women of the varied classes and orders in the great Empire,—the news came of something that had quite recently happened; and not only recently, but in a well-known city of the Empire. It was a wonderful story, firmly and strongly attested by many eye-witnesses, and it appealed at once to the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men.
It differed curiously from all other religions of which the pagans of the Empire had ever heard. These other religions were very ancient; their cradle, so to speak, belonged to far back days—pre-historical days, as men would now call
