dio, or a picture-gallery. Now, the whole congregation joined
heartily in the psalmody: then, the mute crowd listened to the music of
the organ accompanied by the shrill voices of a chorus of thoughtless
boys. Now, prayers, in the vernacular tongue and suited to the occasion,
were offered with simplicity and earnestness; then, petitions, long
since antiquated, were muttered in a dead language. Now, the Word was
read and expounded in a way intelligible to all: then, a few Latin
extracts from it were mumbled over hastily; and, if a sermon followed,
it was, perhaps, a eulogy on some wretched fanatic, or an attack on some
true evangelist. There are writers who believe that the Church was
meanwhile going on in a career of hopeful development; but facts too
clearly testify that she was moving backwards in a path of cheerless
declension. Now, the Church "holding forth the Word of life" was
commending herself to philosophers and statesmen: then, she had sunk
into premature dotage, and her very highest functionaries were lisping
the language of infidelity.

CHAPTER II.

BAPTISM.

When the venerable Polycarp was on the eve of martyrdom, he is reported
to have said that he had served Christ "eighty and six years." [472:1]
By the ancient Church these words seem to have been regarded as
tantamount to a declaration of the length of his life, and as implying
that he had been a disciple of the Saviour from his infancy. [472:2] The
account of his martyrdom indicates that he was still in the enjoyment of
a green old age, [472:3] and as very few overpass the term of fourscore
years and six, we are certainly not at liberty to infer, without any
evidence, and in the face of probabilities, that he had now attained a
greater longevity. A contemporary father, who wrote about the middle of
the second century, informs us, that there were then many persons of
both sexes, some sixty, and some seventy years of age, who had been
"disciples of Christ from childhood," [472:4] and the pastor of Smyrna
is apparently included in the description. If he was eighty-six at the
time of his death, he must have been about threescore and ten when
Justin Martyr made this announcement.

No one could have been considered a disciple of Jesus who had not
received baptism, and it thus appears that there were many aged persons,
living about A.D. 150, to whom, when children, the ordinance had been
administered. We may infer, also, that Polycarp, when an in