This, the principal Hour of the Church's public prayer, was, in the early days of Christianity, said at night, and was called Nocturnum and Vigiliae.

The night office of vigils dates from the very earliest days of Christianity.

tells us that the reason for the practice was a fear that such prayer might lead the catechumens, the Jews or the Pagans converted to Christianity, to allege or to believe that Christians worshipped several Gods.

It was in use amongst the devout Jews, and the early converts to Christianity retained the practice.

In the early days of Christianity the first day of the civil year was given over to rejoicings, dancing, feasting and rioting.

Hence, there is no doubt that the Jewish Passover was taken over into Christianity.

In the early days of Christianity the names of the departed brethren were entered in the diptychs.

No armaments nor ingenuity of science and organization could save it, and even though the form of its institutions were democratic, if the reality of Democracy were not there, its peace crusades and prizes and sentimental Conferences and Christianities would be of little avail.

"That action of the Chinamen is of the essence of real Christianity.

The book, in fact, tells the story of the twenty-third fall of Jerusalem, one of the most beneficent happenings of all wars, and marking an epoch in the wonderful history of the Holy Place which will rank second only to that era which saw the birth of Christianity.

It still stands looking over the blue Mediterranean as a sort of watch tower, a silent, deserted outpost of the land the Crusaders set their hearts on gaining and preserving for Christianity, but behind it is many centuries' accumulation of sand encroaching upon the fertile plain, and no effort has been made to stop the inroad.

You believe in God, and the Bible, and Christianity?

In the early middle age, when the clergy represented and defended Roman pure Christianity and civilization against the half-heathen and half-barbaric Teutons who had conquered the Roman Empire, then doubtless the text became once more full of meaning, and the clergy had again and again to defend the things which belonged to God against the rapacity or the wilfulness of many a barbaric Caesar.

" According to Mr. Fergusson, one of the last and best-known examples of the veneration of groves and trees by the Germans after their conversion to Christianity, is that of the "Stock am Eisen" in Vienna, "The sacred tree into which every apprentice, down to recent times, before setting out on his "Wanderjahre", drove a nail for luck.

Before sunrise on Good Friday the Bohemians are in the habit of going into their gardens, and after falling on their knees before a tree, to say, "I pray, O green tree, that God may make thee good," a formula which Mr. Ralston considers has probably been altered under the influence of Christianity "from a direct prayer to the tree to a prayer for it."

The Christianity of that time was itself by no means averse to the forcible extension of its faith, and in the community of Mohammedans which systematically attempted to reduce the world to its authority by force of arms, it saw only an enemy whose annihilation was, to its regret, beyond its power.

"More will be gained for Christianity by friendly intercourse with Mohammedans than by slander; above all Christians who live in the East must not, as is too often the case, give cause to one Turk to say to another who suspects him of lying or deceit: 'Do you take me for a Christian?' ("putasne me Christianum esse").

In truth, the Mohammedans often put us to shame by their virtues; and a better knowledge of Islâm can only help to make our irrational pride give place to gratitude to God for the undeserved mercy which He bestowed upon us in Christianity."

We shall probably never know, by intercourse with whom it really was that Mohammed at last gained some knowledge of the contents of the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity; probably through various people, and over a considerable length of time.

"If only Christianity would return to the primitive faith," he continued, "and condemn woman as an impure, diabolical, and harmful creature, we might go and lead holy lives in the desert, and in that way bring the world to an end much sooner.

She tells us that Mr. Paice's life was one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities.

If what has now been stated should be urged by the enemies of Christianity, as if its influence on the mind were not benignant, let it be remembered, that Johnson's temperament was melancholy, of which such direful apprehensions of futurity are often a common effect.

Long before Christianity became a power the great literary artists of Greece had reached perfection in style and language, especially in Athens, to which city youths were sent to be educated, as to a sort of university town where the highest culture was known.

Two of the quietest and most devoted pioneers of Christianity were christened James; the most fashionable quarters in London are St. James's; the Spaniards have for ages recognised St. James as their patron saint; and on the whole whether referring to the "elder" or the "less" James, the name has a very good and Jamesly bearing.

They are a calm, devout, forlorn-looking class; are distinctly sincere; have strong liberal notions of Christianity; seem to love one another considerably, and may at times greet each other with a holy kiss; but they don't thrive much in Preston.