y would join the Church on
inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the
act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of
moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they
called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would
increase both the scandal and the confusion.

"A long repose," says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, "had
corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying
himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the
faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every
age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying
of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the
ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no
discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed
their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying
colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by
treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares.
Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned
to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons
in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell
from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous
bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising
their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations,
relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign
provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass
large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church;
took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their
gains by accumulated usuries."(1)

The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the
larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places.
There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served
without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo,
Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with
uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts
of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant;
congregations died out. This was pretty much