right moment the enclosing walls had broken, and freed to the winds the
germs in all their primitive purity.

Imperial favor had not tarnished it, human ambitions had not employed
and degraded it, nor had it been made into complex system by ingenious
casuists. The pure spiritual truth, unsullied as it came from the hand
of its founder, was scattered broadcast, as the band of Christians
dispersed throughout the Roman Empire, naturally forming into
communities here and there, which became the centres of Christian
propagandism. Lyons in Gaul was such a centre.


The fires of persecution had been lighted here and there throughout the
empire, and the Emperor Nero, under whom the Apostles Peter and Paul
are said to have suffered martyrdom, had amused himself by making
torches of the Christians at Rome. But until A.D. 177 Gaul was exempt
from such horrors.

Marcus Aurelius--that peerless pagan--large in intelligence, exalted in
character, and guided by a conscientious rectitude which has made his
name shine like a star in the lurid light of Roman history, still
failed utterly to comprehend the significance of this spiritual kingdom
established by Christ on earth. He it was who ordered the first
persecution in Gaul. In pursuance of his command, horrible tortures
were inflicted at Lyons upon those who would not abjure the new faith.

A letter, written by an eye-witness, pictures with terrible vividness
the scenes which followed. Many cases are described with harrowing
detail, and of one Blandina it is said: "From morn till eve they put
her to all manner of torture, marvelling that she still lived with her