THE MISSIONARY AGE. 237 



of roasted flesh, which resounded with agonising shrieks. 

 They saw their fathers and mothers, their sisters and 

 their dearest friends, hurrying onward to that fearful 

 pit unconscious of danger, laughing and singing, lured 

 on by the fiends whom they called the gods. They 

 felt as we should feel were we to see a blind man walk- 

 ing towards a river bank. Who would have the htart 

 to turn aside and say it was the business of the police 

 to interfere ? But what was death, a mere momentary 

 pain compared with tortures that would have no end ? 

 Who that could hope to save a soul by tears and sup- 

 plications would remain quiescent as men do now, 

 shrugging their shoulders and saying that it is not 

 good taste to argue on religion, and that conversion is 

 the office of the clergy ? The Christians of that period 

 felt more and did more than those of the present day, 

 not because they were better men, but because they 

 believed more ; and they believed more because they 

 knew less. Doubt is the offspring of knowledge : the 

 savage never doubts at all. 



In that age the Christians believed much, and their 

 lives were rendered beautiful by sympathy and love. 

 The dark, deep river did not exist, it was only a 

 fancy of the brain : yet the impulse was not less real. 

 The heart-throb, the imploring cry, the swift leap, the 

 trembling hand outreached to save ; the transport of 

 delight, the ecstasy of tears, the sweet, calm joy that 

 a man had been wrested from the jaws of death — are 

 these less beautiful, are these less real, because it 

 afterwards appeared that the man had been in no 

 danger after all % 



In that age every Christian was a missionary. The 

 soldier sought to win recruits for the heavenly host : 

 the prisoner of war discoursed to his Persian jailer ; 



