THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, FROM THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE ABOLITION OF BY HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. IN THREE VOLUMES.-VOL. II. A NEW AND REVISED EDITION. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1867. The Right of Translation is reserved. HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II.—continued. CHAPTER IV. Christianity to the Close of the First Century. - Constitution of Christian Churches. lutions slow THE changes in the moral are usually wrought as imperceptibly as those in the physical world. Had Great revoany wise man, either convinced of the divine and gradual. origin of Christianity, or even contemplating with philosophical sagacity the essential nature of the new religion and the existing state of the human mind, ventured to predict that from the ashes of these obscure men would arise a moral sovereignty more extensive and lasting than that of the Cæsars; that buildings more splendid than any which adorned the new marble city, now rising from the ruins of the conflagration, would be dedicated to their names, and maintain their reverence for an incalculably longer period; such vaticinations would have met the fate inseparable from the wisdom which outstrips its age, would have been scorned by contemporary pride, and only admired, after their accomplishment, by late posterity. The slight and contemptuous notice excited by Christianity during the first century of its promulgation is in strict accordance with this ordinary development of the great and lasting revo VOL. II. B |
