an art already admired and honored.  She carried away in triumph the brightest ornament of the Pagan schools and placed it in the hands of her chosen ministers.  So that the Christian pulpit soon began to rival the Forum in an eloquence which may be called artistic,—­a natural power of moving men, allied with learning and culture and experience.  Young men of family and fortune at last, like Gregory Nazianzen and Basil, prepared themselves in celebrated schools; for eloquence, though a gift, is impotent without study.  See the labors of the most accomplished of the orators of Pagan antiquity.  It was not enough for an ancient Greek to have natural gifts; he must train himself by the severest culture, mastering all knowledge, and learning how he could best adapt himself to those he designed to move.  So when the gospel was left to do its own work on people’s hearts, after supernatural influence is supposed to have been withdrawn, the Christian preachers, especially in the Grecian cities, found it expedient to avail themselves of that culture which the Greeks ever valued, even in degenerate times.  Indeed, when has Christianity rejected learning and refinement?  Paul, the most successful of the apostles, was also the most accomplished,—­even as Moses, the most gifted man among the ancient Jews, was also the most learned.  It is a great mistake to suppose that those venerated Fathers, who swayed by their learning and eloquence the Christian world, were merely saints.  They were the intellectual giants of their day, living in courts, and associating with the wise, the mighty, and the noble.  And nearly all of them were great preachers:  Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine, Ambrose, and even Leo, if they yielded to Origen and Jerome in learning, were yet very polished, cultivated men, accustomed to all the refinements which grace and dignify society.

But the eloquence of these bishops and orators was rendered potent by vastly grander themes than those which had been dwelt upon by Pericles, or Demosthenes, or Cicero, and enlarged by an amazing depth of new subjects, transcending in dignity all and everything on which the ancient orators had discoursed or discussed.  The bishop, while he baptized believers, and administered the symbolic bread and wine, also taught the people, explained to them the mysteries, enforced upon them their duties, appealed to their intellects and hearts and consciences, consoled them in their afflictions, stimulated their hopes, aroused their fears, and kindled their devotions.  He plunged fearlessly into every subject which had a bearing on religious life.  While he stood before them clad in the robes of priestly office, holding in his hands the consecrated elements which told of their redemption, and offering up to God before the altar prayers in their behalf, he also ascended the pulpit to speak of life and death in all their sublime relations.  “There was nothing touching,” says Talfourd, “in the instability of fortune, in the fragility of loveliness,