different stages of culture, and it has maintained itself through a long
succession of centuries in lands where the transformations in political
structure, the revolutions in social conditions, and the changes in
science and philosophy, have been numerous and extreme.

Beginning in Asia, Christianity extended itself rapidly throughout the
Roman empire and beyond its borders among the barbarians. When the
Empire in the 4th century adopted it, its cult, organization and
teaching were carried throughout the western world. The influences and
motives and processes which led to the result were many and varied, but
ultimately in one way or another it became the religion of Europe and of
the nations founded by the European races beyond the seas and in the
northern part of Asia called Siberia. Beyond these bounds it has not
greatly prospered. The explanation of the apparent bounding of
Christianity by Europe and its offspring is not, however, to be found in
any psychological peculiarity separating the European races from those
of other continents, nor in any special characteristic of Christianity
which fits it for European soil. For not only were its founder and his
disciples Asiatics, and the original authoritative writings Semitic, but
Asiatic tribes and nations coming into Europe have been readily
converted. Missions in Asia too have achieved sufficient success to
prove that there exists no inherent obstacle either in the gospel or in
the Asiatic mind. Moreover, Christianity was once represented in Asia by
a powerful organization extending throughout Persia and central Asia
into India (see PERSIA). _Mutatis mutandis_, the same applies to Africa
also, and Christianity still survives in both continents in the Coptic,
Abyssinian and Armenian Churches. The explanation is rather to be sought
in the political condition of the early centuries of the Christian era,
especially in the rise of Mahommedanism. This may be regarded indeed as
a form of Christianity, for it is not more foreign perhaps to the
prevailing type than are some sects which claim the name. It exerted a
strong influence upon Europe, but its followers have been peculiarly
unsusceptible to missionary labours, and even in Europe have retained
the faith of the Prophet. In the limitations of the Roman empire and in
the separation of East and West consequent upon its decline,
Christianity, as a dominant religion, was confined for a thousand years
to Europe, and even portio