Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/268

 says: Pontus is full of atheists and Christians. There is no one race of men, it was said before the middle of the second century, whether barbarians, or Greeks, or by whatsoever name called, whether of those wandering, homeless tribes who live in waggons, or those pastoral people who dwell in tents, in which there are not prayers and eucharists to the Father and Creator of all things, through the name of the crucified Jesus. The word of our teacher, said another, abode not in Judaea alone, as philosophy in Greece; but was poured out throughout the whole world, persuading Greeks and barbarians in their several nations and villages and every city whole houses and each hearer individually and having brought over to the truth no few even of the very philosophers; and if any ordinary magistrate forbid the Greek philosophy, forthwith it vanishes, but our teaching forthwith, at its first announcement, kings and emperors and subordinate rulers and governors, with all their mercenaries and countless multitudes, forbid, and war against us and try to extirpate, but it rather flourishes. "

That there is a measure of truth in all this no one will gainsay, nor can any one deny the fact of the marvellous, rapid spread of the gospel in the first two or three Christian centuries, through those Jewish apostles and messengers whose hearts were all aflame with love and zeal for their all-glorious Redeemer, and through their first con verts from among the Gentiles. But what about the subse quent history of the professing Church? Has it continued in its first love? Has it " gone on and on " in faith and purity, and in zeal for Christ's cause and the salvation of men? Alas! instead of converting the world, the Gentile Church became more and more merged into the world, and their candlesticks of corporate testimony were one by one removed from the earth. Not as if the Word of God has failed in that whereto it was sent: a people for His Name from among the Gentiles a multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and tongues