tute probably the most productive decade in the career of any single missionary and form the most pregnant and instructive chapter in the history of Christian missions. The first tour, from Antioch through Seleucia, Salamis, Paphos, Perga, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and back to the home church, consumed a little more than a year. The second itinerary, taking the apostle through Syria and Cilicia, Derbe and Lystra, Phrygia and Galatia, to Troas, where the Lord miraculously interposed and called His chosen servant to lay the foundations for European missions, over into Macedonia, Neapolis, Philippi, Amphipolis, Appolonia, Thessalonica, Beroa, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Cæsarea, Jerusalem, and back to Antioch, claimed a little less than three years of strenuous service. The third tour, including a visitation of the churches in Galatia and Phrygia, a stay of two years at Ephesus, through Troas, Macedonia, Greece, Miletus, Patara, Tyre, Cæsarea, to Jerusalem, occupied nearly four years of toil and trial. Even while he was a prisoner at Rome, St. Paul's missionary activity reached out both to Christians and to heathen as they came and went, and his message of Christ penetrated even into the circles of the imperial family and court.

Of the labors of the other apostles very little is known. From his first epistle it appears that Peter labored at one time in Babylon. According to Eusebius there were ancient traditions to the effect that Andrew preached in Scythia, Bartholomew in India, Thomas in Parthia, and, according to later accounts, in India, where on the Malabar coast there are to this day a quarter of a million believers of Syrian nationality that bear the name Thomas Christians. But the wide dissemination of the Gospel through the labors of the apostles is indi

cated by a declaration of St. Paul in his epistle to the Colossians, in which he exhorts the believers not to be moved away from the hope of the Gospel, "which was preached in all creation under heaven."

To get a comprehensive view of the spread of the tidings of salvation in the first century we must return to that memorable day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. Among the men who heard the believers speak in their own several and diversified tongues the wonderful works of God, and many of whom doubtless were among the three thousand souls who the same day were baptized and added unto the Church, there were Jews and proselytes from Parthia, Media, and Mesopotamia, from all the provinces of Asia Minor, from Egypt and Cyrene, from Arabia, and from Rome. Returning to their homes. and bearing witness unto Christ, these new disciples were instrumental in spreading some knowledge of the Gospel over a large portion of the Empire.

How many converts were won? How many churches were organized? We in our day set great store by statistics. In ancient times little was made of this art. As a consequence we have no complete and accurate statistics to indicate the numerical progress of Christianity in the earlier centuries. The sacred record, however, has preserved the fact that on the day of Pentecost three thousand souls were baptized, and that shortly afterward the number of the men came to be about five thousand. And then, throughout the Acts, in nearly every account of the work of the Gospel as the joyful testimony is borne forth and onward, we read statements such as these: Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women; the number of the disciples multiplied exceedingly; many believed; a great number believed and turned unto the

Lord. The New Testament mentions very many churches by name, distributed over a wide territory. It has been estimated that, at the close of the first century, the number of Christians aggregated from two hundred to five hundred thousand. There was a chain of congregations and mission stations three thousand miles long, extending from Spain to Babylon.

By the close of the third century the number of Christians had no doubt increased to some six millions, comprising one-twentieth or more of the total population of the Roman Empire.

There was remarkable extension eastward, across Mesopotamia, into Persia, Media, Bactria, and Parthia. In Armenia the ground was prepared for the successful work of Gregory the "Illuminator," in the fourth century. Origen had occasion to visit Christian churches in Arabia. Edessa was a center of Christian influence, with a Christian king, as early as the second century. Even if the tradition that made Thomas the Apostle of India is discarded, it is certain that Pantænus, the founder of the Christian school at Alexandria, visited India about the close of the second century, and during the next two centuries the number of Christians was greatly augmented.

Egypt and Proconsular Africa took a leading part in the work of evangelization during the post-apostolic age. To bolster up the claims of the papacy Roman Catholic canonists have invented the fiction that Rome is "the mother and mistress" not only of the Western churches, but of the world. As a matter of fact, however, Rome herself was a mission of the Greeks, and "Latin Christianity, when it appears, is African, not Roman." At an early period Alexandria became a Milman, History of Latin Christianity, I. pp. 27 and 28.

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strong center of Christian influence, and from here the Gospel was carried up the Nile, into Nubia and Abyssinia. The catechetical school in the city established by Pantænus and further developed by Clement, became a theological seminary and missionary training school under the leadership of Origen. A synod held in Alexandria in 235 was attended by twenty bishops from the Nile valley. In the time of Cyprian Carthage was a a flourishing center of Christian activity, and in Mauretania and Numidia there were so many Christian churches that when, about the middle of the third century, a general synod was held in Carthage there was an attendance of eighty-seven bishops.

Westward and northward, too, there was a notable extension of Christianity. In the second half of the second century there was an emigration of Christian colonists and teachers from Asia Minor, and in Gaul they built up flourishing congregations. One of the most celebrated of these teachers was Irenæus, pastor of Lyons. In Spain the congregations became so numerous that, in 306, a provincial synod at Elvira was attended by nineteen bishops. At a very early period Roman colonies and Christian congregations were established along the Rhine and the Danube, and toward the close of the second century Tertullian speaks of Christianity in Britain. It is thought that Christian soldiers and officials of the Roman legions sowed the first seeds of the Gospel in the island. At any rate there was a considerable Christian community before the conquering hosts of Rome withdrew.

3. Means and Methods Employed.

True to the terms of the Great Commission and the essential spirit of Christianity, the apostles and early

Christians placed their chief reliance on the Gospel as the power of God unto salvation. No one can read the Acts and the epistles of the New Testament carefully without being impressed with the fact that the divine Word holds the chief place in the work of evangelization.

Under the most varied conditions and in manifold ways and forms of presentation was the Word preached. This activity was not confined to the apostles and the regularly appointed evangelists. There was an abundance of "lay preaching," without taking a disorderly course or interfering in any way with the apostolate and the public ministry of the Church. When persecution scattered disciples far and wide, so far from silencing the preaching of the Word of life, it afforded them opportunities to bear personal testimony to Christ and make known the good news of salvation in every community into which they came.

Among the potent evangelizing forces of this virile age were the "living epistles," of which St. Paul said: They may be "known and read of all men." Not only by oral testimony and confession, but also through their Christian lives and Christ-like conduct did the early disciples, laymen and ministers, men and women, preach the Word and spread the influence of the Gospel. From the blood of the martyrs, the dying testimony of the uncounted thousands who refused to deny their faith, many individual believers and not a few mission stations sprang into being.

Even the written Word, many centuries before the discovery of the art of printing, was an evangelizing force widely applied. The apostles wrote pastoral letters to churches that had been established in leading centers, and copies of these epistles circulated among neighboring churches and, together with the Scriptures