pleasant pastimes of her populace were to witness scenes of cruelty; and the most refined ladies of that period eagerly thronged the amphitheatres to view the agonies of captives from distant tribes or early Christian martyrs as they were thrown to famished and enraged wild beasts in the public arena. Many of the early Christians were thus put to death in the Coliseum, the ruins of which are shown in the engraving.
No wonder then that when the church was taken from the earth, and its forms amalgamated with pagan institutions, the world presented an unparalleled scene of carnage and cruelty, bloodshed and terror.
But Rome was destined to endure a terrible retribution. The northern barbarians whom she had so long oppressed, and from whom she had drawn many of the victims of her gladiatorial combats now wreaked their long-sought vengeance, spreading terror and devastation wherever they went.
One of them, Attila, king of the Huns, called himself the scourge of God, and boasted that grass never grew where his horse had trodden. These incursions spread an intellectual famine throughout Europe. The only men of learning were the monks, who seldom left their cloisters, and the only books were manuscripts concealed in the libraries of the monasteries. Not only were the common people extremely ignorant, but also the rich and noble, and even the kings could scarcely read or write. The reign of superstition was universal. The simplicity of primitive worship was changed to an unmeaning round of rites and ceremonies: and the glorious principles of the gospel were hidden from sight by a dark cloud of ignorance, mysticism and unintelligible jargon, out of which there too often flashed the lurid lightenings of priestly vengeance and persecutions.
The Lord, speaking by the mouth of Jeremiah, says, "My people have committed two errors; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." When the voice of revelation was hushed men began to follow fables and traditions, and he who possessed the liveliest imagination invented the greatest number.
They, instead of the word of God, became the rule of life; and men sought by bodily suffering to purchase admission to the courts of heaven.
We pity the devotee of India, who measures by the length of his body, the wearisome journey of hundreds of miles; or the fakir who sits with his legs in an upright position, for years until the limbs becomes, withered, distorted and useless. But what shall we say of a professed follower of the Savior who makes a pilgrimage of a thousand miles with sharp spikes driven into the inside of his shoes, by which his feet are lacerated at every step! Or of one who spends the greater part of his life sitting on a column thirty feet high and only three feet in diameter, through all the vicissitudes of the seasons, storm and sunshine, cold and heat, with the idea that, by this means, he could secure salvation and exaltation in the presence of God! Surely it was the self-same pagan idea that actuated all.
In those days, also, even the forms and ceremonies of the primitive church underwent complete transformation. Pagan rites were celebrated at Christian festivals, and days commemorative of great events were made to conform to the times appointed for the worship of heathen divinities.
For example, the festival of Easter as observed by the Catholic church, was and still is degraded by pagan rites. And the day that commemorates our Savior's birth, which event took place in April, when the shepherds were abroad on the plains of Bethlehem, with their flocks, was changed from the beautiful Spring time to the dark and gloomy December, that it might conform to a day already set apart for pagan ceremonies, and by this means was secured its universal observance.
The ideas concerning God were also perverted. Space will permit only a glance at this subject. The passions that were said to control the character of heathen gods were attributed to the great Creator and loving Father of us all. He was represented as delighting in vengeance; and glorying in the eternal sufferings of His creatures. Thus the most inhuman persecutors claimed they were doing His will; and hence arose the doctrine of endless torments beyond the grave, which still disgraces nearly all the sects of Christendom. The doctrine of fate has ever been a prominent doctrine of pagan religions.
This dogma was also engrafted into their creed; hence, we find learned teachers of the present age gravely asserting that, owing to the unalterable decrees of God, there are young and irresponsible infants, scarcely a span in length, who are and ever will be doomed to suffer the torments of the lost.
Such was the condition of the social and religious world at the time of the Emperor Constantine.
This politic prince was not a man of religious convictions, but hoping to consolidate his power and gain vast numbers of adherents he granted universal religious toleration and even went so far as to proclaim himself a Christian.
This act of toleration gave a temporary protection to all classes and was of especial benefit to those who wished to retire from the confusion and corruption of the age, and spend their lives in pursuit of science, literature and philosophy.
Such were the tasteless and often brutal amusements, the low sensuality, the base intrigue and bloody warfare of those times, that many longed for retirement and seclusion.
Men and also women, sometimes of the highest rank, awoke, suddenly to the discovery that life was given them for nobler purposes.
Loathing society, despising themselves, and often their companions, to whom they had been wedded in loveless marriages—companions whose infidelities and licentiousness they had too often, to endure, they fled from a world which had sated and sickened them.
Thus arose the monastic order.
By the side of Alpine torrents and in the valleys of Piedmont, by the rocky shores of the beautiful Aegean sea and on its lonely yet lovely islands, as well as on the classic hillsides of Judea, arose thousands of monasteries.
At first, no doubt, the inmates sought for a higher and purer life; but after a time they too sunk into luxury, licentiousness and debauchery.
Yet these monastic institutions served one good purpose, and that one was important. During these perilous times science and literature here found an asylum. Libraries were formed and carefully preserved, which, on the restoration of learning, were of great value to the world.
The foregoing will indicate to some extent the condition of mankind at the close of the sixth century of the Christian era. The light of antiquity had perished. The dawn of modern days had not yet gilded the eastern horizon. The world presented over its whole surface one vast field of contention and bloodshed, with scarcely an object sufficiently prominent to excite interest or deserve attention.
It was the midnight hour of human history.
Though the early church had been destroyed and the priesthood taken from the earth; yet God did not give it up as lost, nor entirely withdraw His Spirit. Then as now "the earth is the Lord's," and He will yet make good His claim to it. It is a blood-bought world, and He who ransomed it at so dear a price will one day return to rule over it as King of kings and Lord of lords. The earth that was bedewed with the Savior's tears and sweat—the earth that was trodden by His hallowed feet—the earth that drank His life blood shall yet throw off the curse that has so long blighted it and receive its paradisaic glory.
Through agencies the most diverse the minds of men were developed and disciplined for the reception of truth until in the Lord's due time in a prepared place and among a people prepared to receive His truth, He would again restore His priesthood, and set up His kingdom upon the earth.
CHAPTER II
MAHOMET
DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA—ARABIAN CUSTOMS—BIRTH OF MAHOMET—EARLY LIFE—JOURNEY TO SYRIA—CHRISTIAN SECTS—DOCTRINES TAUGHT BY MAHOMET—HIS MARRIAGE—PROCLAIMS HIMSELF A PROPHET—PERSECUTION—FLEES
