"How had it been possible that so small a foun tain (i.e. the Gospel) should presently have swelled into a mighty river, and even have covered the face of the earth, had it not sprung from the sanc tary of God, and been rendered thus triumphant by his almighty arm." Dr. Doddridge. THE subsequent extension and continued existence of Christianity, from the period of its first announcement in the world, was the last branch of evidence in its behalf, proposed for discussion in the series of essays we have devoted to the subject. It will be readily perceived, from the very nature of this argument for the divine origin of the religion of Jesus, that the best method of placing it in its clearest light, will be to trace, as concisely as possible, its progress from the era of the apostles till our own day; adverting at the same time, to the formidable obstacles with which it had to contend. In our preceding article we adverted to the extensive progress which Christianity had made in the days of the apostles, and as some of their lives were prolonged till near the close of the first century, we shall commence our present observations with the beginning of the second. The great extension which the religion of the New Testament had attained, particularly in the Roman empire, at the commencement of the second century, will appear sufficiently obvious from the famous Letter of Pliny, addressed to the chief magistrate of Rome, and dated in the year 106, of which the following is an extract :— “For further information, I thought it necessary, in order to come at the truth, to put to the torture two females who were called deaconesses. But I could extort from them nothing, except the acknowledgment of an excessive and depraved superstition; and, therefore, desisting from further investigation, I determined to consult you, for the number of culprits (Christians) is so great, as to call for the most serious deliberation. Informations are pouring in against multitudes of every age, of all orders, and of both sexes; and more will be impeached; for the contagion of this snperstition hath spread not only through cities, but villages also, and hath even reached the farm-houses. I am of opinion, nevertheless, that it may be checked, and the success of my endeavours hitherto forbids 112.-VOL. X. despondency, for the temples, once almost desolate, begin to be again frequented; the sacred solemnities, which had for some time been intermitted, are now attended afresh; and the sacrificial victims, which once could scarcely find a purchaser, now obtain a brisk sale. Whence I infer, that many might be reclaimed, were the hope of pardon, on their repentance, absolutely confirmed." that the religion of Jesus had made extenHere, then, we have conclusive evidence, sive progress in the Roman empire at the commencement of the second century; and that, too, amidst persecution of the most formidable and appalling nature. The profession of Christianity was at this period considered a capital crime by the state; and accordingly, immense numbers of those who avowed themselves the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, were subjected to an ignominious and excruciating death. With the history of Christianity in other countries at the era in question, we are comparatively unacquainted; but we know sufficient to warrant us in affirming, that it made considerable progress in Egypt, Asia, and in almost every country in Europe. Passing over the fortunes of the followers of Jesus, from this time till the year 177, during which intermediate period the flames of persecution raged against them with different degrees of violence in the Roman empire, and in other parts of the world, we find that at this period a dreadful persecution broke out in France. Our readers will be able to form some idea of the sufferings which the Christians endured at this time in that country, when they peruse the following extract from Jones's interesting Church History :— "The populace becoming clamorous to have the Christians thrown to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre, that favourite spectacle was at length provided for them, on this occasion, and Maturus, Lanatus, Blandina, and Attalus, were brought out for this purpose. But previously to the wild beasts being produced, Maturus and Lanatus were put to the torture in the amphitheatre, as if it had not been applied to them before; and every thing that an enraged multitude called for, having been tried upon them, they were at last roasted in an iron chair, till they sent forth the offensive effluvia of burnt flesh. Upon Lanatus, however, the only effect produced was a declaration of his former confession, that he was a Christian; and at length death terminated his sufferings. “Blandina was then produced, and on being fastened to a stake, a wild beast X 315 Solitary Hours: On the Evidences of Christianity. let loose upon her: but this she bore with the greatest composure; and, by her prayers, encouraged others to bear with fortitude whatever might befall them; but as the wild beast did not meddle with her, she was remanded back to prison. “At length Attalus was loudly called for; and he was accordingly led round the amphitheatre with a board held before him, on which was inscribed, THIS IS ATTALUS THE CHRISTIAN. It appearing, however, that he was a Roman citizen, the president remanded him to prison, until the emperor's pleasure should be known concerning him, and others who were in the same predicament. In this respite they so encouraged many who had hitherto declined this glorious combat, as it was justly called, that great numbers voluntarily declared themselves Christians. "The emperor's answer was, that they who confessed themselves to be Christians should be put to death; but that those who denied it, should be set at liberty. Upon this, a public assembly was convened, attended by a vast concourse of people, before whom the confessors were produced, when such of them as were found to be Roman citizens were beheaded, and the rest thrown to the wild beasts. But, to the astonishment of all present, many who had previously renounced their Christianity, and were now produced only to be set at liberty, revoked their recantation, and, declaring themselves Christians, suffered with the rest. These had been greatly encouraged to do so by Alexander, a Phrygian, who had shewn himself particularly solicitous for the perseverance of his brethren. "The multitude became greatly enraged at this; and Alexander being called before the tribunal, and confessing himself a Christian, he was sentenced to be thrown to the wild beasts; and on the following day he was produced in the amphitheatre for that purpose, together with Attalus, whom the people insisted on being brought out once more. Previously to their exposure to the wild beasts, they were subjected to a variety of tortures, and at last run through with a sword. During all this, Alexander said nothing, but evinced the greatest firmness of mind. And when Attalus was placed in the iron chair, he only said, in allusion to the vulgar charge against the Christians of those days, of murdering and eating infants, This, which is your own practice, is to devour men ; we neither eat men, nor practise any other wickedness.' "On the last day of the show, Blandina was again produced, together with a young man of the name of Ponticus, about fifteen 316 years of age, who had been brought out daily to be a spectator of the sufferings of others. This youth, being required to acknowledge the heathen deities, and refusing to do so, the multitude had no compassion for either of them, but subjected them to the whole circle of tortures, till Ponticus expired in them; and Blandina, having been scourged, and placed in the hot iron chair, was put into a net, and exposed to a bull; and after being tossed for some time by the furious animal, she was at length despatched with a sword. The spectators acknowledged, that they had never known any female bear torture with such fortitude. "When this scene was over, the multitude continued to shew their rage by abusing the dead bodies of the Christians. Those who had been suffocated in prison were thrown to the dogs, and watched day and night lest their friends should bury them. The same was done with the bodies that were left unconsumed by fire, that had been mangled or burned, with the heads only of some, and the trunks of others. Even in this horrid state, the heathens insulted them, by asking where was their God, and what their religion had done for them? mangled carcases having been exposed in this manner for six days, were then burned, and having been reduced to ashes, the latter was cast into the river, to disappoint them, as was fondly imagined, of their hopes of a resurrection. From what was done in this place, says Eusebius, we may form an estimate of what was transacted in others. The "The prisons were now glutted with numbers of the Christians;-they were thrust into the darkest and most loathsome cells, and numbers were suffocated; even young men who had been lately seized, and whose bodies had been unexercised with sufferings, unequal to the severity of the confinement, expired, Pothinus, one of the elders of the church of Lyons, upwards of ninety years of age, though very infirm and asthmatic, was dragged before the tribunal; his body, says the narrative, worn out indeed with age and disease, yet he retained a soul through which Christ might triumph. After being grossly ill-treated by the soldiers and the rabble, who unmercifully dragged him about, insulting him in the vilest manner, without the least respect to his age, pelting him with whatever came first to hand, and every one looking on himself as deficient in zeal, if he did not insult him in some way or other; he was thrown into prison, and, after languishing two days, expired." We have thus been somewhat particular in adverting to the persecution endured by the Christian church at Lyons, because the sufferings to which these followers of Jesus were subjected in consequence of their profession of Christianity, were precisely similar to those endured by the disciples of Christ in other parts of the world, during this century. One would have thought that the religion of Jesus, humanly speaking, instead of making rapid progress in the world under such appalling circumstances as these, would rather have been entirely banished from off the face of the earth. votary of Paganism, the fire of persecution was kindled anew, and blazed with the utmost violence. "By the persuasion,” says Dr. Mosheim, "of this imperious minister, the Christians were prohibited from assembling themselves together, and their bishops and doctors were sent into banishment. This edict was published in the year 257, and was followed the year after by one still more severe; in consequence of which, a considerable number of Christians in all the different provinces of the empire, were put to death, and that by such cruel methods of execution, as were much more terrible than death itself.” From this period down to the commencement of the fourth century, the followers of Jesus enjoyed a comparative calm. In the Proceeding downwards till the commencement of the third century, we become acquainted with the existence of the Christian religion in a very interesting portion of Africa. Regarding the time of its intro-year 303, however, the emperor Dioclesian duction into that country, and the precise account of the success which attended its promulgation there, we are not particularly acquainted. We have every reason, however, to believe, that it made considerable progress in different sections of that quarter of the world, but not without those who embraced it, having been subjected to the horrors of a hot persecution. Christianity during all this time was making steady progress in almost every other country, both amidst the most violent persecutions to which its disciples were subjected, and the short intervals of comparative peace they enjoyed. In the year 249, on occasion of the accession of Decius Trajan to the imperial throne, the storm of persecution against the Christians again burst forth with the utmost fury. "This emperor," says Dr. Mosheim," either from an ill-grounded fear of the Christians, or from a violent zeal for the superstition of his ancestors, published most terrible and cruel edicts, by which the prætors were ordered, upon pain of death, either to extirpate the whole body of Christians without exception, or to force them, by tortures of various kinds, to return to the pagan worship. Hence, in all the provinces of the empire, multitudes of Christians were, during the space of two years, put to death by the most horrid punishments which ingenuity could invent." The flames of persecution against the Christians began about this time to abate in their violence, but Gallus, successor of Decius, soon rekindled them in all their former fury. In the year 254 Valerian was proclaimed emperor, and for the first four years of his reign the Christians enjoyed peace. Then, however, owing to the advice of Macrianus, one of his counsellors, and a determined issued an edict, ordering that all the books and writings belonging to the Christians should be burned, and that all their civil rights and privileges should be taken from them, and they rendered incapable of any honours or civil promotion. This edict was followed by two others successively; "by the last of which," says the author just quoted, "it was ordered, that all sorts of torments should be employed, and most insupportable punishments invented, to force these venerable captives (vast numbers of Christians had been previously imprisoned) to renounce their profession by sacrificing to the heathen gods; for it was hoped, that if the bishops and doctors of the church could be brought to yield, their respective flocks could be easily induced to follow their examples. An immense number of persons, illustriously distinguished by their piety and learning, became the victims of this cruel stratagem throughout the whole Roman empire, Gaul excepted, which was under the mild and equitable dominion of Constantine Chlorus. Some were punished in so shameful a manner, as the rules of decency oblige us to pass in silence. Some were put to death, after having their constancy tried by tedious and inexpressible tortures; and some were sent to the mines, to drag out the remains of a miserable life in poverty and bondage." That Christianity should have continued to exist during these repeated, protracted, and severe persecutions, to which its disciples were subjected during the first three centuries, and notwithstanding the opposition it otherwise met 'with, is certainly matter of the highest astonishment; but that, under such circumstances it should rapidly and steadily prosper, is a fact which we hold to be perfectly inexplicable on natural principles. The patience and fortitude 319 Solitary Hours: On the Evidences of Christianity. 320 which the Christians of these days mani- | eighteenth centuries, by the infidels who fested amid their excruciating sufferings flourished during that period. and to this circumstance we are, in a great measure, to attribute the spread of their principles-could not have been the production either of nature or education. The patience and fortitude they evinced could not, we repeat, be natural to these earlier Christians; for thousands and myriads of the female sex were martyrs to the cause of Jesus. Nor could these qualities have been superinduced on the mind by education; for the far greater proportion of those of both sexes who, during the period referred to, suffered and died for the Christian cause, were entirely unacquainted with human literature. We can account for their patience and fortitude amid their frequent, protracted, and excruciating sufferings, on no other principle than that of these qualities being specially communicated to them from on high. A short time subsequent to the last period adverted to--about the year 313-the followers of Jesus were allowed to profess and perform the duties of their religion unmolested. Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor, embraced Christianity about this time, and passed a law establishing it as the religion of the country. The religion of Jesus may be therefore said to have suffered little more from this interesting period at the hands of pagan Rome. The number of its disciples continued greatly to increase through the dark ages, although its glory during this period was greatly eclipsed by the foolish inventions of men. At the period of the Reformation, however, it burst forth in almost all its pristine purity and splendour; and since that most important epoch in its history, it has been making daily additional conquests throughout the various sections of the world. In the preceding paragraphs we have principally confined our observations to the persecutions to which the disciples of Christ Jesus were subjected in consequence of their profession of his religion, as constituting, according to all human calculation, a formidable barrier to its progress in the world; we must not, however, omit to mention, that Christianity has had another powerful species of opposition to contend with, namely, the written and verbal attacks made on it by its enemies. In the earlier stages of its history, it had to withstand the furious opposition made to it by the misrepresentations, abuse, ridicule, and reasonings of Celsus, Tacitus, Julian the apostate, and others. It had also a warfare of the same description to encounter in our own country during the seventeenth and But by far the most formidable effort of this description ever made to extirpate the religion of Jesus from the world, was towards the close of the preceding century, when Voltaire, D'Alembert, Volney, Frederick the Second of Prussia, and others, entered into a conspiracy for the purpose, pledging themselves individually and collectively never to relax in their exertions until they had accomplished their unhallowed purpose. But did they succeed? No. Tis true, perhaps, that the partial success of their labours in France, when all places of religious worship were shut up, and death was proclaimed to be an eternal sleep, may have made them sufficiently vain to anticipate a complete and speedy triumph of their principles: but the delusion must have been soon dispelled; for even then the triumph of infidelity was only of temporary duration. The awful perniciousness of its tenets, if viewed merely in reference to their effects on society, and the horrors associated with them as it regards futurity, led the more sober portion of the French community to perceive the infatuation of embracing such a creed, and to re-adopt and avow their faith in the benign and blissful religion of Jesus. Thus the most violent and malignant attacks made by infidels in every age and country, on the Christian religion, have proved entirely fruitless. And can there possibly be a more humiliating consideration for our infidel philosophers of the present day, who may pride themselves on their fancied superior intellect and profound erudition, than to reflect, that notwithstanding the united, strenuous, and oft-repeated efforts of themselves and their predecessors, to banish from the world a system of religion devised and propagated by the son of a carpenter, and twelve poor illiterate fishermen, that religion, instead of being injured by their resolute attacks, has continued to flourish with additional vigour, and is at the present moment more extensively embraced, and the duties it inculcates are more generally practised, than at any former period of its history. This, we repeat, is a fact, the consideration of which must be mortifying in the extreme to the modern votaries of infidelity. And if we contemplate the rapid progress which Christianity is at present making in different parts of the world, our argument for its divine origin, as legitimately deducible from this fact, will acquire additional force. In the course of the past few years it hath erected itself on the ruins of heathenism, not merely in a few isolated places throughout the globe, but_even in whole nations, where systems of the most horrible idolatry and superstition had, to all human appearances, been most firmly established. The recent conversion of the population of the South Sea islands to the religion of Jesus, is a striking illustration of this part of our argument. And every new conquest, which it is at the present moment making throughout the world, constitutes, when all the circumstances of the case are considered, a fresh proof that the records contained in the Old and New Testament, are a special revelation from the throne of the Eternal, to guilty men. Elgin. MEPHITIC GASES.-NO. IV. (Continued from col. 230.) J. G. HAVING pointed out the gases which we denominated mephitic, and the manner in which these gases are generated, we proceed to notice, as was proposed, the mode in which they operate in mines. M. Fourcroy, a celebrated chemist in France, read a memoir to the Royal Academy of Sciences, founded upon certain appearances which took place under his inspection, on removing a very great number of human bodies from the ancient cemetery des Innocens, at Paris, in the year 1789, which throws some light upon this subject. This cemetery had been conducted upon a plan materially different from the general mode in which human bodies are committed to the earth, where each individual is confined within a separate coffin, and interred in a several grave. The grave was thirty feet in depth, and twenty feet by twenty, forming a square of four hundred feet upon the surface, and a solid consisting of twelve thousand cubic feet. To fill up this immense chasm, the bodies were placed close to each other, in rows upon the floor, and again in rows upon each other, without any open space, and no other separation than that which arose out of the thin coffins in which each body was placed. When filled, this grave became a solid mass of human bodies, containing nearly fifteen hundred persons. Whenever one of these common graves was full, another of similar dimensions was dug at a distance; about a foot in thickness, of earth, was thrown over the bodies in the first grave, and the second grave was filled up in a manner similar to the first, and so on, in succession from age to age. This cemetery was the ordinary place of interment for the poor, and, according to circum stances, in the course of fifteen years, or thereabouts, each of these immense graves was re-opened, the remains of these dead bodies dug out, and fresh interments took place, until a solid mass of human bodies refilled this immense chasm as before. The grave-diggers in this cemetery became, therefore, experimentally acquainted with human substances in every stage of corruption; and scenes there exhibited are delineated by M. Fourcroy, highly interesting to the chemist and philosopher, as well as to the individuals of the human family at large, who are all to pass through the gates of death into the vast eternity for which they were born. Many of the phenomena observed by M. Fourcroy, on dissecting these masses of corruption, are foreign to our purpose, and must, therefore, be passed over in silence; but some, as they throw considerable light upon the subject in hand, may and ought to be noticed here. The grave-diggers affirmed, that bodies thus interred, (if it can be called interment, where a thin coffin is exposed to the action of every wind and shower which descends,) do not perceptibly change colour during the first seven or eight days; but that elastic fluids are disengaged by the commencement of the putrid process, which inflate the abdomen until it bursts; and that the issuing of these elastic fluids affects persons exposed thereto with faintness, nausea, vertigo, &c. and that when the party so exposed is at only a short distance therefrom, a privation of sense, and even death, is the consequence. Convinced that no danger exists to the living from the presence of dead bodies, but at this interesting period, the grave-diggers assisted M. Fourcroy in his researches, save as to this particular; but their alarm and horror were so great, in respect to this, that no entreaty could prevail upon them to assist in the development of this awful phenomenon. M. Fourcroy, from these facts, as well as the pallid and diseased appearance of the grave-diggers, strongly reprobates the interment of human bodies in large towns, and even in their immediate vicinity. Modern chemists are agreed, that the gases evolved during the process of putrefaction upon animal bodies are hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and azote, combined in various proportions, and possessing, according to these combinations, various intensities in their action upon living bodies. But carbon and oxygen form carbonic acid gas, and hydrogen and carbon form carburetted and subcarburetted hydrogen gas, and these are the mephitic gases with whi |