The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-23 00:00:00

CHURCH HISTORY IN ST. PAUL'S
CATHEDRAL.

The Rev. Canon Lightfoot on Tuesday evening de-
livered the first three lectures on "Christian Life in
the Second and Third Centuries," to a congregation of
men, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Referring to the lectures given on the last three
Tuesdays, he began by remarking that, while it was
necessary to face the problems of the present, it was
not lees important to review the experience of the
peat. The study of contemporary religion and politics
would always exercise the most powerful fascination
over our minds ; but it was beset wi,h the most serious
disadvantages. In the first place we approached the
subject with the blind partiality of men who had
taken a distinct side in the conflict which they were
reviewing. In the next, as we were placed in the
very midst of the events, our point of view was neces-
sarily confused, and we were incapacitated from esti-
mating correctly their proportions.
In the three lectures allotted to him he proposed to
dwell on some aspects of Christian life in the second
and third centuries of our era. For the most part his
illustrations would be drawn from the period of 150
years which followed upon the close of the firet cen-
tury. His starting point, therefore, would be marked
in secular history by the accession of the Emperor
Trajan, and in ecclesiastical history by the death of the
last surviving Apostle, St. John, for the two events
were newly coincident, In confining himself to these
limits he was anxious to exhibit Christianity as au in-
dependent force, working in and by itself, without the
aid of any emtraneous supports or any peculiar advan-
tages. Thus he excluded on the one hand the ages when
the special influence and the ex traordinary inspiration of
the Apostles mi ght be thought to exempt the Ch -itch from
the common experiences of history. And on the other
hand he stopped short of the time when, under Con-
stantine, the (much entered into an alliance with the
State, and it became difficult henceforth to estimate
how far its triumphs should bs ascribed to its own in-
herent force, and how far to the support of the civil
arm. During the period to which he restricted himself,
there was no disturbing element in the calculation.
Whatever successes it achieved were due solely to its
own vital energy, to the working slits Christian ideas
through the Christain society.
Striking the key-note of the investigation he began by
quoting a remarkable description of the early Christians
by one of themselves, who appeared to have lived close
upon the confines of the Apostolic Age. Tne writing
from which the extract was taken—the Epistle to
Diognetus—was a fragment without a name and with-
out a date, a single page from out of the vast volume
of Christian literature in the second century which.
with a few meagre exceptions, hadaltogether perished.
The writer seemed to have embodied in it the very
spirit of the Gospel. Compared with the noblest
utterances of heathen sage or moralist of the time—
with ths dogmatism of an Epictetus, or the plaintive
aspirations of a 111. Aurelius—it soared into a loftier
region than any of these. There was an energy and a
vitality in it, a consciousness of strength, a capability of
endurance, and an assurance of tiiumph wholly dif-
ferent in kind from the religious sentiments of heathen-
dom. The secret of this moral force was that the
writer left one in no doubt. He did not refer to the
nioral precepts of the Gospel, or to the social organiz.a
tion of the Church, or ho the philosophical dogmas of
Christianity, but to a person and a fact. Not a word
was said about any of those five causes which Gibbon
paraded before his readers when he attempted to ac-
count for the unparalleled triumphs of Christianity
the pertinacious reel of the Christians, the alluring
promises of future bliss, the miraculous powers claimed
by the Primitive Church, the austere morality of the
new society, and the efficient discipline of the body.
These, so far as they were causes, were only secondary
causes.
Canon Lightfoot proceeded to deal with the taunt of
the early antagonists of Christianity, that the new re-
ligion dM not recruit its ranks from the most exalted,
the most intellectual, or the most respectable classes
of society, and then, with the practical difficulties
which, whatever the rank of the Christian. beset his
path. It was next to impassible for na to melba the

übiquity, the obtrusiveness of polytheism. AU IN
public olSom of Rome were connected with the iseate-
&rye( somegoel---the Temple of MarswastheWar Mogi
the Temple of Juno, the Mint; the Temple of Sams.
the Treasury, and so forth. Thus every official duty WM
bound up with some religious sanction. When Roman
civilisan and enlightenment had reached the
highest pitch, during the reign of Augustus, the impor-
tation of corn from Egypt, en which the Roman popu-
lace largely depended for support, was deified and •
niche assigned to the new goddess Annona in the pan.
theon of Roman worship—very much as though among
ourselves Free Trade were to receive the honour of an
apotheosis. But the elasticity of polytheism was not
confined to matters of general and public interest.
Esch several locality had its patron deity—the
house and the field, the stable and the farmyard.
Even the sewage of Rome was under the protection of
some god. Every desire and every sentiment, every
virtue, and one might almoet say every vice, of man
underwent an apotheosis. Nat, so far did this passion
for deification go that there was hardly a ramification
of human life or development of human action left un
occupied. Tertullian, with savage humour, paraded
the names of gods and goddesses who presided over the
birth and nurture of a child—Edula and Pains over
its eating and drinking, Cunina over its slumbers in
the cradle, Rumina over its suckling, Farinus or
Locuf tutu over its first lesson in talking, Statina over its
first efforts at standing, with numberless others. Amid
this multitudinous throng of deities the position of the
early converts most have been difficult indeed. To
keep themselves pure from idols, as it was their most
elementary duty, as also was their direst perplexity.
No wonder that to the careless heathen they appeared
morose, reserved, unsympathetic in private life.
After describing the brutalizing public games and
amusements of that period, the lecturer concluded by
eloquently describing the influence exercised by
Christianity in bringing about the abolition of slavery.