Lights and shadows of spiritualism

JEUISII AXJ^ C//RJSTIAY ERAS.Cjcommanding all Christians to bo put to doatb, tlicy flocked in ;ibody to tbo proconsul, and afknowlcdgcd themselves adlierents ol"tlio now faith. On this the Roman deputy executed a few of tbochief men, and dismissed tbo others to their homes. And theydeparted ; not lamenting that their friends had como to so terribleanend, but that they themselves had been deemed unworthy toreceive the solemn crown of martyrdom ;had escaped dying in unutterablenot rejoiced because theytorture, but because a select fewof their number had obtained admittance into the noble host ofthose whose blood was shed in the service of God.The words ofSt. Paul express the sentiment with which every martyr seems to'•have met death : I am now ready to bo offered, and the time ofmy departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight ; I havefinished my course ; I have kept the fixith : henceforth there is laidup for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteousjudge, shall give me at that day."And why were the Christians of the first century so much moredevoted to their creed than those of the nineteenth ? Howcame it that, in spite of the most bloody and unsparing persecutionsmen had ever groaned under, the new creed spread withrapidity over the whole of the then civilised world ? What was itby which zealot and atheist—the prejudices of men bigoted infavour of their old religion, and the prejudices of men bigoted infavour of their no-religion—were alike so speedily and so thoroughlyconquered ? Was it not in great measure by the continual workingof signs and wonders '?— by the impetus which the unceasingintervention of spiritual beings gave to the advancement of theChristian religion ? Could a creed whose high teachings weresupported by such striking miracles be likely to fail ? Theinternal evidences, indeed, were alone siifficient to prove thisfaith to be of God. But those internal evidences were recommendedto such men as Paul, John, and Peter, by the powerwhich they themselves possessed of working mighty things, bythe marvels which many of them had seen the great Founderof their belief accomplish, by the frequent descent upon them ofthe Spirit of God, by the gift of miraculously healing, by the