possible extent they lived up to the old Epicurean adage, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Very different the conduct of the people of Alexandria when the pestilence smote that city in the third century. History presents no more impressive contrast to illustrate the peculiar influence of Christianity upon the characters of men. The external circumstances were very similar to those at Athens, and both were of such a nature as to call forth the unrestrained and undisguised expression of real feelings; the difference of them being entirely moral, and wholly attributable to the dissimilarity of religious sentiment. According to Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria at the time of the plague, there was no house where there was not at least one dead, and the city was filled with lamentations, by reason of the multitude of corpses and the daily dying. Yet the people thought they ought not to consider it a calamity, but only an exercise and trial in no way inferior to those of wars and persecutions, from which they had recently suffered. "Most of the brethren," says Dionysius, "by reason of their great love and brotherly charity, sparing not themselves, cleaved one to another, visited the sick without weariness, and attended upon them diligently, administering to them in Christ, and most gladly dying with them. In this sort the best of our brethren departed this life: whereof some were presbyters, some deacons, and others laymen, held in great reverence; so that this kind of death, for the great piety and strength of faith, seems to differ in nothing from martyrdom. Moreover, they took the bodies of the departed saints into their uplifted arms, wiped their eyes and closed their mouths; carried them on their shoulders, and laid them out: they embraced them, washed them, and wrapped them in shrouds; and shortly after, these persons obtained the same kind offices from others, for the living continually traced the steps of the dead. But," he adds, "among the heathen [in the same city], all fell out on the contrary. They drove the sick out of their houses as soon as the first symptoms of disease were observed; they shunned their dearest friends and relations; they threw out the sick, half dead, into the streets; they threw their dead, without burial, to the dogs; thus did they endeavor to evade partaking in the general fate, which, notwithstanding the many expedients they used for that purpose, they could not easily escape." Thus we see how Christianity begets humanitarian feeling, fosters love, leads to tenderness of word and action. when tenderness is a boon, and throws around the couches of the sick and dying the atmosphere of true friendship and the halo of immortal hope.

"1. Look at the influence of Christianity upon man's social condition. What were the homes of Greece and Rome in the days of their highest refinement? Reeking with every abomination, with no sanctity in the marriage tie, and woman utterly debased. Athens had become the corruptress of the world, and its shrines of consummate beauty were sinks of utter infamy. Rome was a cesspool of impurity; and even Juvenal pictures her as a filthy sewer, into which flowed the dregs of every Syrian and Achæan stream. But Christianity threw a purifying element into the fetid mass. It raised woman from the abysses of shame, and enthroned her a queen amid the sanctities of a well-ordered home, until even the heathen exclaimed, 'What women these Christians have!' And how it widened human charity! What deeds of cruelty and horror are recorded on the classic page! The wandering Ulysses, landing in Thrace, sacking a city and killing all the inhabitants, was but a type of the world at large, where plunder and murder were perpetual, and the words stranger and enemy were synonymous. Christianity sounded a condemnation of war, proclaimit a revolt of brother against brother; and although the voice of Christ commanding peace has not been obeyed by all his followers, yet it has greatly lessened the barbarities of war, and on every modern battle-field there flies the Red Cross of Geneva, a flag which every nation is bound to respect-the symbol of that religion which, when universally received, shall give universal peace. Human life was everywhere held cheap. You have seen Gerome's picture of the Gladiatorial Fight. There is the crowded amphitheater, in the arena the two combatants; the conqueror standing with uplifted sword over the wounded athlete, waiting the signal to slay or to spare; the Vestal Virgins voting for his death; the emperor, on whose nod a human life is hanging, carelessly eating a fig; while a hundred thousand are enjoying the spectacle of a man butchered to make a Roman holiday.' Christianity, however, proclaimed human life a precious thing, and uttered a plea for the poor and weak. 'Our charity dispenses more in the streets,' says Tertullian to the heathen, 'than your religion in all the temples.' In our day it has covered the world with hospitals and asylums. Its spirit made Howard the prison reformer; Wilberforce the slave emancipator; Florence Nightingale the Crimean heroine; and Müller the orphan's friend.

"2. Trace its effects upon liberty. The slave, when Christ came, was a mere live chattel, an implement with a voice, a piece of property valued less than an ox.' Crassus, after the revolt of Spartacus, crucified ten thousand slaves at one time; and Trajan made the

same number fight in the amphitheater for the amusement of the people, and prolonged the massacre one hundred and twenty-three days. At the root of this 'sum of all villainies' a blow was struck when our Lord said, 'All ye are brethren;' and though he left the great world-despotisms untouched, yet he gave a moral force which did two things: First, it gave an inward spiritual liberty to the individual, whether master or slave; and next, it made the creation of new civil institutions only a question of time. The gospel is the nurse of liberty. Not only does she strike off the shackles from every slave, but she is ever the herald of national liberty as well.

"3. See its effects upon science. Some of the wayward children of science, falsely so-called, who forsake their own domain to assault Christianity, and would like to banish God from his universe and set up their own crude speculations in the stead of his eternal truth, talk about the conflict between science and revelation. There is no such conflict. There may be a conflict between divine truth and many of the theories of scientific dogmatists. But theory is one thing and scientific fact another. In the domain of science we walk not upon adamant, but over a pathway strewn with the wrecks of vain speculations now utterly abandoned. So, many of the plausible theories of the day that stand in imposing semblance of truth will end in utter emptiness, and be recalled only with derision; and men will wonder that they could ever have been accepted as established truth. True science can tell us nothing but facts, and true science and true religion go hand in hand. Do you want the proof? Where but in Christian lands has science found its widest sphere, its greatest welcome, and its most splendid victories? Where do we find the brilliant discoveries of astronomy and geology, of chemistry and physiology? Where do we find the inventive genius that saddles the wind, bridles the lightning, harnesses steam, constructs the telephone and the phonograph, and makes the electric light an illuminating agent? Where? In Christian lands alone.

How Christianity en

"4. Trace its effects upon literature and art. riches the human mind! She touches with her mystic wand the rude, unlettered mind, and out springs the divine angel of thought. Intellect is ennobled, and poetry, painting, music, architecture, literature, and philosophy revive under her genial influence. The debt of mind to religion is like the debt of vegetation to the sun. Modern art is but the handmaid of religion. Greek mythology gives no more fascinating picture that than of the delicate and resplendent Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, who rose from the foam of the sea and

hastened with rosy feet to the land, where grasses and flowers sprang up beneath her tread. What is that but a fable of Christian art giving form and expression to its ideals of beauty in the glorious marble of the Pieta, the divine sweetness of the Madonna, the hallelujah chorus of 'The Messiah,' or the immortal verse of Paradise Lost?'

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5. See what it does for commerce.

Christianity creates a commerce wherever it goes; for it stimulates men to develop the resources of the earth, gives industry and peace, security to life and property, brands all dishonesty and meanness, and makes trade to be governed by honest and unselfish principles. Other systems of religion never sustain great commerce. Where are the white-winged ships of Asia and of Africa? There is no reason, except in religion, why the sails of those great continents never dot our waters. In short, Christianity develops manhood, and gives the highest type of character. Bacon attributes Britain's greatness to her breed of men. fluences of Christianity have given that elevation of the race, that sturdy vigor which leads the world, and by which her little band of thirty thousand British in the heart of India holds up the banner of civilization against the mighty odds of two hundred millions?

What but the in

"The Christian religion is the moving and inspiring power in our modern civilization. It is the foster-parent of enterprise, wealth, and scientific culture; and behind the commercial, mental, and moral development of nations is this mighty power of Christianity, which has given us all that is noblest and most majestic in our civilization.

"Can a religion which brings forth such fruit, which has contributed so much to the advancement of the race, which rides on the highest wave of progress in science, and arts, and civilization, and purer morality, be a fraud and imposture? I know that the advocate of the naturalistic theory will deny that Christianity has had any thing to do with human development, and will ascribe every thing even in advanced humanity to the cosmic forces of nature, and the influence of external circumstances. But this is no mere question of theories—it is a question of facts. Will any sane man deny that the world is different now from what it would have been if Christianity had not been revealed? Compare our condition with that of unchristian lands. 'Look on this picture, and on that.' How is it that beyond the pale of Christendom all civilization is unprogressive? We know what are the affinities of our holy religion; how it combines with pure morality and chaste living, with learning, liberty, law; we know its effects on domestic peace, industry, and comfort. We know, too,

the affinities of infidelity, for Emerson has truly said 'that depravity is at the root of much of the freethinking of the day.' Hume, the greatest name on the roll of unbelief, was a defender of adultery, taught that suicide, and even murder, was lawful; for he said that there was no more crime in turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel than in diverting the courses of the Nile or Danube. We know the degradation of morals in England one hundred and fifty years ago, when the principles of infidelity were rife. We know the Reign of Terror and of licentiousness in France, when the Atheistic Council abolished Christianity as a religion, and decreed 'There is no God, and death is an eternal sleep.' Society was disorganized; a very hell was kindled; the earth was drunk with the blood of four millions of the best citizens of the land; until, in terror, Robespierre called the Council together, and they issued the decree, The French nation believes in God and immortality.'

"Once again, we hold you to the practical tests. Can that religion be a fraud, a stupendous lie, which, aside from the spiritual and eternal interests of men, fits them for the enjoyment of civil liberty, stirs up invention and enterprise, aids and carries forward civilization, extends science and art, renovates the moral nature of man, and multiplies the comforts and blessings of humanity? Impossible. When the great discoverer of America entered the waters of Oronoco, one of the seamen said he had found an island. 'No,' replied Columbus, 'such a river can not flow from an island, it must drain the waters of a continent.' So this mighty river of Christianity which lights up the landscape with its brightness, and creates life wherever it flows, can not have any human origin. Its springs are far off in the everlasting hills of God." (Rev. Hugh Johnson, M. A.)

CHRISTIANITY CONQUERING THE WORLD.

And this religion is conquering the world. It was never more gloriously successful than now. Churches were never so numerous, communicants never so multitudinous and faithful. The Bible was never so widely read, and the Bible civilization never so wide-spread. Note the march of Christianity. "In the first 1,500 years of its history it gained 100,000,000 of adherents; in the next 300 years, 100,000,000 more; but in the last 100 years it has gained 210,000,000 more. Please make these facts vivid. Here is a staff. Let it represent the course of Christian history. Let my hand represent 500 years. I measure off 500, 1,000, 1,500 years. In that length