l was chiefly carried on by means
of struggling conversions, in which the fervor of their souls was
communicated to their neighbors. Their preachings under the porticoes of
Solomon were addressed to circles not at all numerous. But the effect of
this was only the more profound. Their discourses consisted principally
of quotations from the Old Testament, by which it was sought to prove
that Jesus was the Messiah.

The real preaching was the private conversations of these good and
sincere men; it was the reflection, always noticeable in their
discourses, of the words of Jesus; it was, above all, their piety, their
gentleness. The attraction of communistic life carried with it also a
great deal of force. Their houses were a sort of hospitals, in which all
the poor and the forsaken found asylum and succor.

One of the first to affiliate himself with the rising society was a
Cypriote, named Joseph Hallevi, or the Levite. Like the others, he sold
his land and carried the price of it to the feet of the Twelve. He was
an intelligent man, with a devotion proof against everything, and a
fluent speaker. The apostles attached him closely to themselves and
called him _Barnaba_, that is to say, "the son of prophecy" or of
"preaching." He was accounted, in fact, of the number of the prophets,
that is to say, of the inspired preachers. Later on we shall see him
play a capital part. Next to St. Paul, he was the most active missionary
of the first century. A certain Mnason, his countryman, was converted
about the same time. Cyprus possessed many Jews. Barnabas and Mnason
were undoubtedly Jewish by race. The intimate and prolonged relations of
Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem induces the belief that
Syro-Chaldaic was familiar to him.

A conquest, almost as important as that of Barnabas, was that of one
John, who bore the Roman surname of Marcus. He was a cousin of Barnabas,
and was circumcised. His mother, Mary, enjoyed an easy competency; she
was likewise converted, and her dwelling was more than once made the
rendezvous of the apostles. These two conversions appear to have been
the work of Peter.

The first flame was thus spread with great rapidity. The men, the most
celebrated of the apostolic century, were almost all gained over to the
cause in two or three years, by a sort of simultaneous attraction. It
was a second Christian generation, similar to that which had been formed
five or six years previously, upon the shores of L