prison for his arrears of taxes, or with the Governor and the
officials who tortured him. No wonder if, in such a state of
things, the minds of men were stirred by a passion akin to despair,
which ended in a new and grand form of suicide. It would have ended
often, but for Christianity, in such an actual despair as that which
had led in past ages more than one noble Roman to slay himself, when
he lost all hope for the Republic. Christianity taught those who
despaired of society, of the world--in one word, of the Roman
Empire, and all that it had done for men--to hope at least for a
kingdom of God after death. It taught those who, had they been
heathens and brave enough, would have slain themselves to escape out
of a world which was no place for honest men, that the body must be
kept alive, if for no other reason, at least for the sake of the
immortal soul, doomed, according to its works, to endless bliss or
endless torment.

But that the world--such, at least, as they saw it then--was doomed,
Scripture and their own reason taught them. They did not merely
believe, but see, in the misery and confusion, the desolation and
degradation around them, that all that was in the world, the lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, was not of
the Father, but of the world; that the world was passing away, and
the lust thereof, and that only he who did the will of God could
abide for ever. They did not merely believe, but saw, that the
wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of
men; and that the world in general--above all, its kings and rulers,
the rich and luxurious--were treasuring up for themselves wrath,
tribulation, and anguish, against a day of wrath and revelation of
the righteous judgment of God, who would render to every man
according to his works.