Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/137

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 119 dence could not be very frequent, and the general uses CHAP, to which their liberality was applied, reflected honour ' ' on the religious society. A decent portion was re- served for the maintenance of the bishop and his clergy; a sufficient sum was allotted for the expenses of the public woi-ship, of which the feasts of love, the ' agapae,' as they were called, constituted a very pleasing part. The whole remainder was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According to the discretion of the bisliop, it was distributed to support widows and orphans, the lame, the sick, and the aged of the community ; to comfort strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the misfortunes of prisoners and captives, more especially when their sutt'erings had been occasioned by their firm attachment to the cause of religion *". A generous in- tercourse of charity united the most distant provinces, and the smaller congregations were cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more opulent brethren '^. Such an institution, which paid less regard to the merit than to the distress of the object, very materially conduced to the progress of Christianity. The pagans who were actuated by a sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged the benevolence of the new sect*. The prospect of immediate relief and of future protection, allured into its hospitable bosom many of those unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would have abandoned to the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old age. There is some rea- son likewise to believe, that great numbers of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice of the times, had been exposed by their parents, were frequently rescued from death, baptised, educated, and maintained by the piety of the christians, and at the expense of the public treasure '. <= See the apologies of Justin, Tertullian, etc. <* The wealth and liberality of the Romans to tiieir most distant brethren, is gratefully celebrated by Dionysius of Corinth, ap. Euscb. 1. iv. c. 23. e See Lucian in Peregrin. Julian ( Kpist. 49.) seems mortified, that the christian charity maintains not only their own, but likewise the heathen poor. ' Such, at least, has been the laudable conduct of more modern mission- aries, under the same circumstances. Above three thousand new-born in-