of the Christian apologists, from Justin Martyr to Minucius
Felix. Making here, again, what deductions you please for the fervid
eloquence and rhetorical exaggerations of such a man as Tertullian, it
is too much to suppose even his "African" impetuosity would have
ventured, not merely on the virulent invective, the bold taunts, with
which he everywhere assails the popular superstitions, but on such
strong assertions of the triumphant progress of the upstart religion,
unless there had been obvious approximation to truth in his statements.
"We were but of yesterday," says he, "and we have filled your cities,
islands, towns, and assemblies; the camp, the senate, the palace, and
the forum swarm with converts to Christianity." Apologist for
Christianity! Unless these words had been enforced by very much of
truth, he would have made Christianity simply ridiculous; and
Christians would have been necessitated to apologize for
their mad apologist.

The same conclusion equally follows from the consideration of those
very corruptions of Christianity, which no candid student of
ecclesiastical history will be slow to admit had already infected
it, many years before Constantine ventured to aid it by his equivocal
patronage. It was obviously its triumphant progress,--its attraction
to itself of much wealth,--the accession, to a considerable extent,
of fashion, rank, and power,--that chiefly caused those corruptions.
So long as the Christian Church was poor and despised, such scenes
as often attended the election of bishops in the great cities of the
empire would be quite impossible.

Under such circumstances the argument of Mr. Newman--judiciously
compressed into a few sentences--appears to me even ludicrous. How
different the course which Gibbon pursues! What a pity that the
great historian did not perceive that this statement would have led
him equally well to his desired end; that so brief a demonstration
would suffice to account for that unmanageable phenomenon, the rapid
progress and ultimate triumph of Christianity! He, on the contrary,
seems to have read history with very different eyes; and yet I suppose
no man will question either his learning or his sagacity. He finds
himself obliged to admit the conspicuous advance which the Gospel had
made before Constantine's accession, and employs every nerve to invent
sufficient natural causes to account for it. What a facile task would
he have had of it, if he had but bethought him