s it by degrees gathered of sin,
repentance, pardon; the efficacy of the blood of the Son of God; its
proselytizing spirit; its vivid dogmas of a resurrection from the dead,
the approaching end of the world, the judgment-day. Above all, in a
worldly point of view, the incomparable organization it soon attained,
and its preaching in season and out of season. To the needy Christian
the charities of the faithful were freely given; to the desolate,
sympathy. In every congregation there were prayers to God that he would
listen to the sighing of the prisoner and captive, and have mercy on
those who were ready to die. For the slave and his master there was one
law and one hope, one baptism, one Saviour, one Judge. In times of
domestic bereavement the Christian slave doubtless often consoled his
pagan mistress with the suggestion that our present separations are only
for a little while, and revealed to her willing ear that there is
another world--a land in which we rejoin our dead. How is it possible to
arrest the spread of a faith which can make the broken heart leap with
joy?

[Sidenote: Its first organization.]

At its first organization Christianity embodied itself in a form of
communism, the merging of the property of the disciples into a common
stock, from which the necessary provision for the needy was made. Such a
system, carried out rigorously, is, however, only suited to small
numbers and a brief period. In its very nature it is impracticable on a
great scale. Scarcely had it been resorted to before such troubles as
that connected with the question of the Hebrew and Greek widows showed
that it must be modified. By this relief or maintenance out of the funds
of the Church, the spread of the faith among the humbler classes was
greatly facilitated. In warm climates, where the necessities of life are
small, an apparently insignificant sum will accomplish much in this way.
But, as wealth accumulated, besides this inducement for the poor, there
were temptations for the ambitious: luxurious appointments and a
splendid maintenance, the ecclesiastical dignitaries becoming more than
rivals to those of the state.

[Sidenote: Gradual sectarian divergences.]

From the modification which the primitive organization thus underwent,
we may draw the instructive conclusion that the special forms of
embodiment which the Christian principle from time to time has assumed,
and of which many might be mentioned, were, in reality, of only