of preparation. They
had developed the religious sense, beyond any of the Aryan peoples.
Their religion had become a part, the main part, of their daily lives.
They believed it, not with the languid logic of the Romans, not with the
sensuous pleasure of the Greeks, but fiercely, fervidly, with a passion
that swept all reason to the winds.

Among them appeared the Christ, born in the days of Augustus, crucified
in those of Tiberius.[5] His teaching was mainly the doctrine of love,
which Buddha had announced five hundred years before, but which was new
to the Roman world; and the promise of life beyond the grave, which many
races had more or less believed in, but which never before had been made
to carry a vision of such splendor and such glory. He also advocated
non-resistance to enemies, a principle which the early Church obeyed,
but which has found small favor among the masses of later Christians.

These teachings, then, were none of them wholly unconceived before; but
they were enforced by a life so pure, a manner so earnest, as compelled
respect. Converts became many; and one of these at least took literally
the command of the Master, to proclaim the faith to all peoples of the
earth. The apostle Paul, stepping beyond the narrow bounds of Judea,
preached Christianity to mankind.[6]

Paul was the first great missionary. The earlier faiths of Greece and
Rome had not sought to extend themselves, because they did not recognize
the brotherhood of man. The new faith insisted upon this, insisted on
our duty to our fellows; and so under Paul's leadership every Christian
became a missionary, teaching, uplifting the downtrodden, giving them
hope, not of this world, but of an infinitely brighter one. The faith
spread faster than ever world conquest had been spread before. Scarce a
generation after the Crucifixion it had permeated the Empire, and Nero,
to divert from himself the suspicion of having burned Rome, accused the
Christians.[7]

This led to their first persecution. They were tortured as a punishment
and to extort confession. Most of them stood nobly by their doctrine of
non-resistance, and endured heroically a martyrdom which they looked on
as opening the gates of heaven.[8]

Their devotion drew to them the first serious notice of the Roman
authorities. Hitherto they had been regarded merely as a sect among the
Jews. But now, with reluctant admiration of their courage, there came
also a recognition of their rapid