all the persecutions, that he had blotted out the very
name of Christian. No sooner had the conversion of Constantine brought
rest to the Church, than she rose again from her seeming ruins, ready
and able to spread more and more through "the kingdoms of this world,"
that they might "become the kingdoms of Christ."

[Sidenote: and thus helped to prove the Divine origin of the Church.]

We may well believe that no institution of human appointment could have
stood firm against such terrible and reiterated shocks. Nothing less
than a Divine Foundation, and a strength not of this world could have
borne the Church through the ages of persecution, not only without loss
of all vital principle, but even with actual invigoration and extension
of it.

{63}

Section 4. _Effects of Persecution on the Worship and Discipline of
the Church._

The fierce trials of the age of persecution were not without their
influence on the inner life of the Church, both as regarded Worship and
Discipline.

The cruel oppressions to which they were constantly liable, drove
Christians to conceal their Faith from the eyes of the heathen world
whenever such concealment did not involve any denial of their Lord, or
any faithless compliance with idolatrous customs. [Sidenote: Seeking
martyrdom forbidden.] Indeed, it was a law of the Church that martyrdom
was not to be unnecessarily sought after, and the wisdom of this
provision was more than once shown by the failure under torture of
those who had presumptuously brought upon themselves the sufferings
they had not strength to bear, and which did not come to them in the
course of God's Providence.

[Sidenote: Holy Rites and Books kept hidden.]

The strictest secrecy was enjoined upon Christians as to the religious
Rites and sacred Books of the Church, and we read of many martyrs who
suffered for refusing to satisfy the curiosity of their Pagan judges
respecting Christian worship, or for persisting in withholding from
them the Christian writings.

[Sidenote: Church ritual temporarily checked.]

Another natural effect of persecution was to check for a time the
development of the ritual of the Church, and to render necessary the
use of the simplest and most essential forms even in the celebration of
the Holy Eucharist. The immense subterranean excavations at Rome,
known by the name of the Catacombs, are an abiding {64} proof to us of
the straits to which the primitive martyrs and their companion