Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THTKD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.317conviction that the multitude so collected was onepeople apart from all other peoples. And this convictionis itself the great marvel. How was itwrought ? For it was an utterly new thing uthe earth. The union of race,lanuae,and lolity,with whichwas usuallyoven, had been hitherto the bond of suenations as had as yet existed. The great city itself__had sprung up and flourished by the strict unionof these four things. After its career of foreignconquest had substituted for the government ofa city the great Roman confederation, it had indeed,like the preceding world - empires, in factdisregarded all these, being supported by a forceindependent of them all. But that force was materialpower. The great statue was of iron. Itwas a novelty unheard of as yet among the gentilesand unimagined by poet or philosopher, tocreate a polity which, disregarding sameness ofrace, of language, and of locality, should exist andmaintain itself throughout the whole earth solelyby the force of faith and charity.Such was the idea of Christians about them-selves from the beginning. The idea preceded thefact. The prophets foretold it; the Apostles proclaimedit :4 let us observe the fulfilment of theprophecy and the proclamation. We will talstand in the middle of the third century, when« Zach. ii. ]], Is. ii. 2, Mich. iv. 1, compared with Titus ii. U and1 Tct. ii. y.