hey were called, constituted a very pleasing part. The
whole remainder was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According to
the discretion of the bishop, it was distributed to support widows and
orphans, the lame, the sick, and the aged of the community; to comfort
strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the misfortunes of prisoners
and captives, more especially when their sufferings had been occasioned
by their firm attachment to the cause of religion. A generous
intercourse of charity united the most distant provinces, and the
smaller congregations were cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more
opulent brethren. Such an institution, which paid less regard to the
merit than to the distress of the object, very materially conduced to
the progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a
sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged the
benevolence, of the new sect. The prospect of immediate relief and
of future protection allured into its hospitable bosom many of those
unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would have abandoned to
the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old age. There is some reason
likewise to believe that great numbers of infants, who, according to the
inhuman practice of the times, had been exposed by their parents, were
frequently rescued from death, baptized, educated, and maintained by the
piety of the Christians, and at the expense of the public treasure.

II. It is the undoubted right of every society to exclude from its
communion and benefits such among its members as reject or violate
those regulations which have been established by general consent. In
the exercise of this power, the censures of the Christian church were
chiefly directed against scandalous sinners, and particularly those who
were guilty of murder, of fraud, or of incontinence; against the authors
or the followers of any heretical opinions which had been condemned by
the judgment of the episcopal order; and against those unhappy persons,
who, whether from choice or compulsion, had polluted themselves after
their baptism by any act of idolatrous worship. The consequences of
excommunication were of a temporal as well as a spiritual nature. The
Christian against whom it was pronounced, was deprived of any part in
the oblations of the faithful. The ties both of religious and of
private friendship were dissolved: he found himself a profane object of
abhorrence to the persons whom he the most