uphold and defend Idolatry in Arabia. In the Roman empire the Heathen religion was threatened by the Kingdom of God, under the form of Christianity; in Arabia only by the dominion of Islam. It is notorious that Islam, under the form of a rigid Monotheism, has retained and legalised the essentials of Heathenism, such as: a self-chosen earthly sanctuary, or House of God (beit-Ullak); ritual ceremonies, in the stead of a worship in spirit and in truth; fictitious revelations; a false Prophet and unqualified Mediator; and dispensation from the necessity of a spiritual regeneration in heart and life. Christianity called the Heathens out of their religious night into the bright daylight of the Sun of righteousness and truth. Islam transferred them from the starlight night into the moonlight night. In the latter case their change was a comparatively slight one, and only disposed them still more fatally to confound night with day, and to prefer darkness to light.

The same Satanic influence, which had moved the Jewish priests and elders to crucify the Master and to persecute the Disciples, also stirred up the whole Roman empire to scatter and destroy the rising Church. For by the truth they taught, and by the holy love they practised, the Christians were a standing rebuke to the errors and vices, so largely prevalent everywhere around them, and so genial an element for the sinister influence of the powers of Darkness. In the Apocalyptic epistle to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna it is expressly written, 'Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days' (Rev. ii. 10). The visible persecutors and actual imprisoners, of course, were the Roman magistrates and soldiers: but Holy Scripture, which looks through the outward appearance to the inward essence of things, makes the startling announcement, 'The devil will cast some of you into prison.' So certain it is, that the sanguinary persecutions of the Christian Church by the Pagan empire of Rome had their deepest spring in the infernal spheres of Darkness.

But Light is destined to triumph over Darkness, and Good to prevail against Evil. Therefore, as the heavenly faith and love of the Christians survived the persecution of a Jewish

fanaticism, so they also gained the victory over the Roman prison, fire, and sword. The 'religio illicita,' the persecuted Church, became a privileged institution, a protected Church-Establishment. New Rome came forth from Old Rome. Christianity superseded Paganism as the 'Religion of the State.' The laws of the Empire were gradually reformed in a Christian direction, and its public institutions increasingly harmonised with the word of God. The Pontifex maximus of a bygone superstition was replaced by the Christian Emperor of a new and higher order of things. The mighty people of Rome became the first Christian Nation.

IV.— Islamism, a compound of Jewish fanaticism and Roman despotism, likewise opposed Christianity, but more especially in its National and Political Manifestation.

In the way described, Christianity had now advanced to the third of the ever-widening circles of its healthful life and influence: from the personal, through the ecclesiastical, to the national. Its progress from one of these stages to the other was a perfectly natural and necessary one, being nothing more than the organic unfolding of its inward life and the fuller realisation of its destiny. Christ's parting injunction to His Apostles was, 'Go ye, and make disciples of all the nations' (Matt. xxviii. 19). He claims the whole man, and all men. His rich storehouse of blessings is intended for the Individual, the Church, and the Nation.

As soon as a nation accepts Christianity for its religion, it, in a sense, becomes a Christian nation. From that moment it is no less incumbent upon it to Christianise its institutions, laws, habits, and entire national life, than an individual Christian is bound to lead a Christian life. But as in this present world of development everything is imperfect, and the true ideal is only pursued, never completely overtaken, we neither find the Christian individuals perfect, nor the Christian churches immaculate, If, therefore, we see Christian life and influence, in its widest, its national, circle even still more extenuated and marred,— this must not make us blind to what is actually Christian, or induce us