s, as being God, easily healed
her."[258:5]

Dr. Conyers Middleton says:

"Whatever proof the primitive (Christian) Church might have
among themselves, of the miraculous gift, yet it could have
but little effect towards making proselytes among those who
pretended to the same gift--possessed more largely and exerted
more openly, than in the private assemblies of the Christians.
For in the temples of _AEsculapius_, all kinds of diseases were
believed to be publicly cured, by the pretended help of that
deity, in proof of which there were erected in each temple,
columns or tables of brass or marble, on which a distinct
narrative of each particular cure was inscribed.
Pausanias[258:6] writes that in the temple at Epidaurus there
were many columns anciently of this kind, and six of them
remaining to his time, _inscribed with the names of men and
women who had been cured by the god_, with an account of their
several cases, and the method of their cure; and that there
was an old pillar besides, which stood apart, dedicated to the
memory of Hippolytus, _who had been raised from the dead_.
Strabo, also, another grave writer, informs us that these
temples were constantly filled with the sick, imploring the
help of the god, and that they had tables hanging around them,
in which all the miraculous cures were described. There is a
remarkable fragment of one of these tables still extant, and
exhibited by Gruter in his collection, as it was found in the
ruins of AEsculapius's temple in the Island of the Tiber, in
Rome, which gives an account of two blind men restored to
sight by AEsculapius, in the open view,[259:1] and with the
loud acclamation of the people, acknowledging the manifest
power of the god."[259:2]

Livy, the most illustrious of Roman historians (born B. C. 61), tells us
that temples of _heathen gods_ were rich in the number of offerings
_which the people used to make in return for the cures and benefits
which they received from them_.[259:3]

A writer in _Bell's Pantheon_ says:

"Making presents to the gods was a custom even from the
earliest times, either to deprecate their wrath, obtain some
benefit, or acknowledge some favor. These donations consisted
of garlands, garments, cups of gold, or whatever conduced to
the decoration or splendor of th