as in the days of old.  It is a fact worthy of special notice, that persecution not only fails to conquer those who love Jesus, but it fails also to hinder others from embracing his religion.  It has first a winnowing power.  It separates from the body of the faithful those who are Christians only in name.  Then the manifestation of Christian faith and patience by those who remain steadfast, draws men from the world without to Christ.  Hence the maxim, as true as trite, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”  The Christian religion at the beginning had no worldly advantages, and it was opposed by all the power of imperial Rome in alliance with the heathen priesthood.  Had it been possible that any combination of men should crush it, it must have perished at the outset; but it only grew stronger in the midst of its fierce and powerful enemies.  It went through ten bloody persecutions, “conquering and to conquer,” until it overthrew paganism, and became the established religion of the Roman empire.  Then it was not strengthened by its alliance with the state, but only corrupted and shorn of its true power.  And so it has been ever since.  The gospel has always shown itself mightiest to subdue men to Christ, when it has been compelled to rely most exclusively on its own divinely furnished strength.  What the apostle said of himself personally, the gospel which he preached can say with equal truth:  “When I am weak, then am I strong.”  How shall we account for this fact?  The only reasonable explanation is, that God is the author of the gospel, and his power is in it, so that it is able to overcome the world without any help from without.  Were it the invention of man, we might reasonably expect that it would be greatly strengthened by an alliance with the kings and rulers of the world, instead of being thereby corrupted and weakened, as we find to be the invariable result.  Because God made the gospel, and not men, when it is left free to work according to his appointment, it is mighty in its power over the human heart; but the moment worldly men take it under their patronage, that they may make it subservient to their worldly ends, they bind it in fetters, and would kill it, had it not a divine and indestructible life.

9.  We notice, further, that the same love of Jesus which makes men invincible to the world without, also enables them to conquer their own corrupt passions, and this is the greater victory of the two.  It is easy to declaim on the sins and inconsistencies of visible Christians.  The church of Christ, like every thing administered by men, is imperfect.  Unworthy men find their way into it, making it, as the great Master foretold, a field in which wheat and tares grow together.  Nevertheless, wherever the gospel is preached in its purity, bright examples are found of its power to reclaim the vicious, to make the proud humble, and the earthly-minded heavenly.  It draws all who truly receive it, by a gradual but