nds, or shut up in prisons,
because they professed the religion of the true God. There is but one
thing that Christians have not in common, and that one thing is their
wives. They do not feast as if they should die to-morrow, nor build
as if they should never die. The objects of their life are innocence,
justice, patience, temperance, chastity.

To this noble exposition of Christian belief and life in his day,
Tertullian does not hesitate to add an ominous warning to the
magistrates he is addressing--ominous, for it was a forecast of a great
event soon to come to pass: "Our origin is but recent, yet already we
fill all that your power acknowledges--cities, fortresses, islands,
provinces, the assemblies of the people, the wards of Rome, the palace,
the senate, the public places, and especially the armies. We have
left you nothing but your temples. Reflect what wars we are able to
undertake! With what promptitude might we not arm ourselves were we not
restrained by our religion, which teaches us that it is better to be
killed than to kill!"

Before he closes his defense, Tertullian renews an assertion which,
carried into practice, as it subsequently was, affected the intellectual
development of all Europe. He declares that the Holy Scriptures are a
treasure from which all the true wisdom in the world has been drawn;
that every philosopher and every poet is indebted to them. He labors
to show that they are the standard and measure of all truth, and that
whatever is inconsistent with them must necessarily be false.

From Tertullian's able work we see what Christianity was while it was
suffering persecution and struggling for existence. We have now to
see what it became when in possession of imperial power. Great is the
difference between Christianity under Severus and Christianity after
Constantine. Many of the doctrines which at the latter period were
preeminent, in the former were unknown.

PAGANIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY. Two causes led to the amalgamation of
Christianity with paganism: 1. The political necessities of the new
dynasty; 2. The policy adopted by the new religion to insure its spread.

1. Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to
give a master to the empire, it was never sufficiently strong to destroy
its antagonist, paganism. The issue of the struggle between them was an
amalgamation of the principles of both. In this, Christianity differed
from Mohammedanism, which absolutely an