in the early Church; probably there is also more of organized Christian effort.  In many points the comparison is in our favor, but earnestness, and the spiritual power which attends it, are on a lower grade.  There is no escape from the conviction that just here lies the reason why the Christian Church, with all her numbers, her vast material resources, and her unlimited opportunities, cannot achieve a greater success.

2.  But, on the intellectual side, and as relating to the methods of direct effort, there are many points in which imitation of the early example is entirely practicable.  And first, the wise discrimination which was exercised by Augustine and other Christian leaders is entirely practicable now.  There has prevailed in our time an indiscriminate carelessness in the use of terms in dealing with this subject.  The strong language which the Old Testament employed against the abominations of Baalism, we have seemed to regard as having equal force against the ethics of Confucius or Gautama.  “Heathenism” is the one brand which we have put upon all the non-Christian religions.  I wish it were possible to exchange the term for a better.[29] Baalism was undoubtedly the most besotted, cruel, and diabolical religion that has ever existed on the earth.  When we carefully study it we are not surprised at the strong language of denunciation which the Old Testament employs.  But as I have already shown, we find in the New Testament a different spirit exercised toward the types of error which our Saviour and his disciples were called to meet.  There is only gentleness in our Lord’s dealings with those who were without the Jewish Church.  His strongest denunciations were reserved for hypocrites who knew the truth and obeyed it not.  He declared that the men of Nineveh would rise up in judgment against those who rejected the clear message of God’s own Son.  The man who goes forth to the great mission fields with the feeling that it is his province to assail as strongly as possible the deeply-rooted convictions of men, instead of winning them to a more excellent way, is worse than one who beats the air; he is doing positive harm; he is trifling with precious souls.  He does not illustrate the spirit of Christ.

The wisest of the early Fathers sometimes differed widely from each other in their methods; some were denunciatory, others were even too ready to excuse.  The great African controversialist, Tertullian, was unsparing in his anathemas, not only against heathen customs, which were vile indeed, but against the teachings of the noblest philosophy.  He had witnessed the former; he had not candidly studied the latter.  With a blind zeal, which has too often been witnessed in the history of good causes, he denounced Plato, Aristotle, and even Socrates with a violence which marred the character of so great a man.  On the other hand, Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria were perhaps excessively broad.  Of two noted Alexandrines, Archdeacon Farrar says:  “They