ost universally _human_,
most dissociated from every consideration but that of the rights and
well-being of the human race in its entirety--that such a religion, be
it repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive,
most rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in
the world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of
Christianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence and the
earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its most
powerful attractions and most efficacious means of success.

Against paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit
less great. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or
philosophical allegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned
solely with the relations of mankind to God and with their eternal
future. To the pagan indifference of the Roman world the Christians
opposed the profound conviction of their faith, and not only their
firmness in defending it against all powers and all dangers, but also
their ardent passion for propagating it without any motive but the
yearning to make their fellows share in its benefits and its hopes. They
confronted, nay, they welcomed martyrdom, at one time to maintain their
own Christianity, at another to make others Christians around them;
propagandism was for them a duty almost as imperative as fidelity.

And it was not in memory of old and obsolete mythologies, but in the
name of recent deeds and persons, in obedience to laws proceeding from
God, One and Universal, in fulfilment and continuation of a contemporary
and superhuman history--that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of
Man--that the Christians of the first two centuries labored to convert
to their faith the whole Roman world. Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously
astonished at what he called the obstinacy of the Christians; he knew
not from what source these nameless heroes drew a strength superior to
his own, though he was at the same time emperor and sage. It is
impossible to assign with exactness the date of the first footprints and
first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It was not, however, from Italy,
nor in the Latin tongue and through Latin writers, but from the East and
through the Greeks, that it first came and began to spread. Marseilles
and the different Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor and settled
upon the shores of the Mediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the rout