St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-09-02
What Christianity Has Done.

Reflect what kind of world this was
when the disciples of Christ undertook
to reform it, and compare it with the
condition in which their teachings have
put it. In its mighty metropolis, the
centre of its intellectual and political
power, the best men were addicted to
vices so debasing that could not even
allude to them without soiling the pa
per | write upon. All manner of I'M
principled wickedness was practised in
the private life of the whole pOpula-
ton without concealment or shame,
and the magistrates were thoroughly
and universally corrupt. BenevOlence
in any shape was altogether unknown.
The helpless and the weak got neither
Justice nor mercy. There was no re-
lief for the poor, no succor for the sick,
no refuge for the unfortunate. In all
pagandOm there was not a hospital;
asylum, almshOuse, or organized chart
ty of any sort. The indifference to
human life was literally frightful. The
order of Il successful leader to assassi-
nate his opponents was always Obeyed
by his followers with the utmost alac-
rity and pleasure. 1t was Il special
amusement of the populace to witness
the shows at which men were cOmpell-
ed to kill one another, to be torn in
pieces by wild beasts, or otherwise
''butchered, to make a Roman holt
day" In every province paganism
enacted the same cold-blOOded cruel
ties; oppression and robbery ruled SUI
preme; murder went rampaging and
red over all the earth. The church
came, and her light penetrated this
moral darkness like a new sun. She
covered the globe with instructions of
mercy, and thousands upon thousands
of her disciples devoted themselves ex-
clusively to works of charity at the
sacrifice of every earthly interest. Her
earliest adherents were killed without
remOrse - beheaded, crucified, sawn
asunder, thrown to the beasts, or COW
cred with pitch, piled up in great
heaps, and slowly burnt to death. But
her faith was made perfect through
suffering, and the law of love rose in
triumph from the ashes of her martyrs.
This religion has come down to us
through the ages, attended all the way
by righteousness, justice, temperance,
mercy, transparent truthfulness, eXult-
ing hope, and white winged charity.
Never was its influence for good more
plainly perceptible than now. 1t has
not converted, purified, and reformed
all men, for its first principle is the
freedom of the human will, and there
are those who choose to reject it. Bnt
to the mass of mankind, directly and
indirectly, it has brought uncOunted
benefits and blessings. Abolish it
take away the restraints which it i'm
poses on evil passions - silence the
admOnitiOns of its preachers - let all
Christians cease their labors of charity
blot out from history the records OF
its heroic benevolence-rep the laws
it has enacted and the institutions it
has built up-let its moral principles
be abandoned and all its miracles of
light be extinguished-wha would we
come tot | need not answer this
question the experiment has been
partially tried. The French nation
formally renouneed Christianity, de
MED the existence of the Supreme Be
ing, and so satisfied the hunger of the
infdel heart for time. What follow