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240 ; but 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.'

"The new religion which Jesus was sent to teach, was not only to be preached by himself to that generation, but to be perpetuated to all time. His own ministry he knew was to be short, and to have a tragical end. It could be perpetuated in no other way than by choosing assistants while he lived, and training them to take up the work where he laid it down, to receive the gospel from his lips, proclaim it to the world, and when their days should be numbered commit it to others, who should be prepared in their turn to instruct a new generation, and thus send it down to all future times. Had there been no organization of this kind, had Jesus chosen no Apostles, Christianity would have perished on the very thresh- old of its existence. Accordingly, not long after the commencement of his mission, after a night of prayer to God, doubtless for Divine guidance and direction, he choose twelve men of his more immediate followers, and ordained them as his assistants and successors in the propagation of the new faith. To them he explained more fully the principles of his religion, which to the multitude, for fear of popular commotion, he veiled under the dress of parable and allegory. He sent them during his own ministry as heralds of his approach, to prepare the minds of the people by their own instructions for his more perfect teaching.

"These twelve Apostles were men from the lower orders of society, of but slender literary and intellectual cultivation, without wealth or influential