The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

The mother of young Alexander was a Christian. Never was the maxim more beautifully illustrated, that blessed is the boy who has a pious mother. This noble woman, notwithstanding all the unspeakable corruptions which surrounded her, had trained her child in the faith and morals of Jesus. Like a guardian angel, she had watched over her son amidst all the temptations of the palace.

Alexander, upon ascending the throne, in the very palace where Elagabalus had so recently practised his pagan orgies, habitually rose at an early hour, and upon his bended knees implored God’s guidance. He then held a cabinet council, aided by sixteen of the most virtuous senators. The affairs of state were carefully discussed, efforts being made to redress every wrong.

A few hours were then set apart for study, that he might, by intellectual culture, be better prepared for his responsible situation. He then practised for a time at the gymnasium for the promotion of his bodily vigor. After lunch, he received petitions and dictated replies till supper, at six, which was the principal meal of the day. Guests of distinction were always invited to sup with him. His table was frugal, his dress simple, his morals were pure, his manners polished and courtly. He adopted for his motto the golden maxim of Jesus our Lord: “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”172 It was then fresh and new. Few even of those who admired the sentiment knew that it was Jesus who had given it its emphatic announcement.

When Severus appointed a governor of a province, he first publicly propounded his name, that, if there were any disqualification, it might be mentioned. “It is thus,” he said, “the Christians appoint their pastors: I will do the same with my representatives.”

And yet, strange as it may seem, Alexander Severus does not seem to have been a true Christian. He was simply like many upright, high-minded, honorable young men now, who assent to Christianity, are measurably governed by its morals, but are not in heart disciples of Jesus.

Alexander was deficient in moral courage: he wished to compromise. While he professed belief in Jesus, he professed also belief in the Roman gods. He wished to build a temple in Rome, to be dedicated to Jesus Christ, for Christian worship; but the oracles told him, that, if he did this, everybody would become Christian, and the temples of the gods would be abandoned. He therefore desisted. Still, throughout his reign, Christians were protected so far as he could protect them; but, in remote sections of the empire, Christians often suffered terribly from the malice of pagan magistrates, and from the brutality of the mob.

The reforms of justice and mercy which Alexander Severus was introducing into the empire were hateful to the soldiers. They wished to give free range to their appetites and passions, and to riot in plunder. A mutiny was excited in the camp against him. In a paroxysm of rage, the Pretorian Guard, sixteen thousand strong, marched into the city, breathing threatenings and slaughter. For three days and three nights, a terrible battle raged in the streets of Rome. There was a wasting conflagration, and multitudes were slain. The city was menaced with total destruction. And all this because a virtuous emperor wished to protect the innocent, and to restrain the wicked from crime!

A kind Providence gave Alexander the victory. The insurgents were driven back to their camp. Still they were too powerful to be punished. The whole reign of Severus was harassed and imbittered by the outrages of this licentious soldiery.

We have now come down in our narrative to the middle of the third century. The Romans were a very powerful, and in many respects a highly-cultivated people. Their literature has excited the admiration of the world. It is still studied in the highest seats of learning. Their paganism was the best which the world has ever known. We have presented in impartial contrast the practical workings of the religion of Rome and the religion of Jesus Christ. Every thoughtful reader must be impressed with the wonderful, the divine superiority of Christianity. It must be manifest to every reflective mind, that, in the religion of Jesus Christ, we find the only hope for our lost world. That religion is not a religion of dead doctrines and pompous ceremonies, but one of a living faith and a holy life.

“Do right,” says Christianity,—“right to God by loving him and worshipping him as your heavenly Father; right to yourself by cultivating in your own heart every thing that is pure, lovely, and of good report; right to your fellow-man, regarding him as your brother, and doing every thing in your power to elevate him, purify him, and prepare him for heaven. Your past sins may all be forgiven. Christ has died upon the cross, and made atonement for them. Penitence for sin, trust in an atoning Saviour, and the earnest, prayerful return to a holy life, will open to you the gates of heaven.” This is Christianity. It needs not the enforcement of labored argument: it is its own best witness. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.”173

It not unfrequently happens that a young man gets the impression that there is something a little distinguished in being an unbeliever. He assumes the air of a sceptic, and takes the ground that Christianity is the religion of weak minds; that the reason why he does not believe is, that he has more intelligence and knowledge than those people who believe.

Should there chance to be such a one who reads these pages, I would ask him, How do you account for the fact that the most intelligent men in the world have been Christians? Were Bacon and Boyle, Sir Matthew Hale and Herschel, men whose intellectual renown has filled centuries, weak-minded men?—and yet they were Christians. Was Napoleon Bonaparte a man of feeble intellect?—yet he said at St. Helena,—

“The loftiest intellects since the advent of Christianity have had faith, a practical faith, in the mysteries and the doctrines of the gospel; not only Bossuet and Fénelon, who were preachers, but Descartes and Newton, Leibnitz and Pascal, Corneille and Racine, Charlemagne and Louis XIV.” Were Washington and Jackson, Clay and Lincoln, ignorant and weak men?—they were Christians. Are the presidents in nearly all the colleges and universities of Christendom incapable of comprehending the force of argument?—they are Christians.

Was Daniel Webster a man of feeble powers of comprehension, incapable of appreciating the force of an argument?—he bears the following testimony to his faith in Christianity:—

“Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe, compared with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured and re-assured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. This belief enters into the very depths of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it.”

No: it is too late for any one to take the ground that Christianity is the religion of ignorant men and weak women. God has given evidence sufficient to convince every candid mind. This evidence is so abundant, that God declares it a great sin not to believe. There is no crime more severely denounced in the Bible than that of unbelief. Perhaps you say, “I cannot believe without evidence;” but God has given evidence sufficient to convert every heart which is not so wicked that it will not believe.

Not to believe will surely bring condemnation at God’s bar. To believe in Christianity, and yet not in heart to accept it, and not publicly to avow one’s faith, is perhaps a greater sin. The declaration of our Saviour is positive, that he will not recognize at the judgment-day those who have not confessed him before men.

There are undoubtedly those who have wickedly cherished a spirit of unbelief, until God, as a punishment, “has sent them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”174

The following incident affectingly illustrates this truth. The writer, a few years ago, at the close of the afternoon’s service in the church on a summer’s day, was called upon in his study by a man of dignified person and manners, whose countenance and whole demeanor indicated superior intellectual culture. I had noticed him for one or two sabbaths in the church. His marked features, and his profound attention to the preaching, had awakened my interest. With much courtesy he apologized for intruding upon my time, but expressed an earnest desire to have a little conversation with me.

“I have,” said he, “for several sabbaths, attended public worship in your church, and need not say that I have been interested in the preaching; and you will probably be surprised to have me add, that I cannot believe the sentiments you advocate. I cannot believe that the Bible is a divine revelation, or that there is any personal God. I am what you would probably call both an infidel and an atheist; and I should be glad to give you a brief account of my history.

“When a young man, I became interested in the writings of the French philosophers,—Voltaire, Helvetius, Diderot, and D’Alembert. I filled my library with their works, and perused them with eagerness. Their teachings I accepted. They were in harmony with my desires; and I lived accordingly. Renouncing all faith in Christianity, in any other God than the powers of Nature, and in any future life, I surrendered myself unrestrained to the indulgence which those principles naturally inculcated. Thus I have lived. Christianity and its professors have ever been the subjects of my ridicule and contempt.

“I still retain those principles. The arguments with which I have stored my mind, and upon which I have so long relied, appear to me invincible. I cannot believe that the Bible is any thing more than a human production. When I look upon the world, its confusion and misery, I can see no evidence that there is any God who takes an interest in the affairs of men. I see that the wrong is just as likely to triumph as the right. In the animal creation, there is, from the lowest to the highest, a regular gradation; and as they all, at birth, came from nothing, so, at death, into nothing they will vanish.

“I have now passed my threescore years and ten. I have lost most of my property. My eyesight is rapidly failing. The companions of my youthful days are all gone. Most of my children are in the grave; and I have no more expectation of meeting them in another world than of meeting my faithful dog or my sagacious horse. I am aged, infirm, bereaved, and joyless. There is nothing in the retrospect of the past to give me pleasure: the present brings but weariness, gloom, and sadness: before me is the abyss of annihilation.

“Now, could I only believe as you believe,—that there is a loving heavenly Father, who watches over his children; that the trials of this life are intended to form our characters for endless happiness; that beyond the grave there is immortality, happy realms where the sorrows of earth are never known; that provision is made for the forgiveness of all my sins; and that, after a few more days here, I could enter golden gates, and be forever in heaven with the loved ones who have gone before me,—I should indeed be the happiest man in the world. But I cannot believe it. There is no evidence sufficiently strong to remove my unbelief.”

Such was the confession of an unbeliever; and we know that such must be the moral condition of every man who is approaching the grave without the Christian’s hope. How different from this was the testimony of Paul the Christian as