should be a new heaven and a new
earth, in which should dwell righteousness; and the Prince of Peace--
Prophet, Priest, and King--should reign therein forever and ever.

Of the great preachers who appeared in thousands of pulpits in the
fourth century,--after Christianity was seated on the throne of the
Roman world, and before it had sunk into the eclipse which barbaric
spoliations and papal usurpations, and general ignorance, madness, and
violence produced,--there was one at Antioch (the seat of the old
Greco-Asiatic civilization, alike refined, voluptuous, and intellectual)
who was making a mighty stir and creating a mighty fame. This was
Chrysostom, whose name has been a synonym of eloquence for more than
fifteen hundred years. His father, named Secundus, was a man of high
military rank; his mother, Anthusa, was a woman of rare Christian
graces,--as endeared to the Church as Monica, the sainted mother of
Augustine; or Nonna, the mother of Gregory Nazianzen. And it is a
pleasing fact to record, that most of the great Fathers received the
first impulse to their memorable careers from the influence of pious
mothers; thereby showing the true destiny and glory of women, as the
guardians and instructors of their children, more eager for their
salvation than ambitious of worldly distinction. Buried in the blessed
sanctities and certitudes of home,--if this can be called a
burial,--those Christian women could forego the dangerous fascination of
society and the vanity of being enrolled among its leaders. Anthusa so
fortified the faith of her yet unconverted son by her wise and
affectionate counsels, that she did not fear to intrust him to the
teachings of Libanius, the Pagan rhetorician, deeming an accomplished
education as great an ornament to a Christian gentleman as were the good
principles she had instilled a support in dangerous temptation. Her son
John--for that was his baptismal and only name--was trained in all the
learning of the schools, and, like so many of the illustrious of our
world, made in his youth a wonderful proficiency. He was precocious,
like Cicero, like Abelard, like Pascal, like Pitt, like Macaulay, and
Stuart Mill; and like them he panted for distinction and fame. The most
common path to greatness for high-born youth, then as now, was the
profession of the law. But the practice of this honorable profession did
not, unfortunately, at least in Antioch, correspond with its theory.
Chrysostom (as we will