In taking a liistorical view, however brief, of the Christian missions of successive ages, it seems desirable to exercise charity in tlie largest degree consistent with truth. And, in fact, great allowance must be made for the ignorance and difliculties of ancient and mediicval times. Nevertheless, in the light of the Saviour's ride,
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" by their fruits shall ye know them," it is necessary to concede that much in ecclesiastical history that has passed for Christianity is scarcely less than a caricature of the reality. So of missionary propagandism and the conversion of nations, it must be confessed that many familiar and comprehensive phrases, such as the " con- version of the Koman empire," '• the conversion of the Northern nations," " the conversion of Germany," " of Toland," " of Norway," etc., can only signify nominal conversion, and such outward changes as might take place wholly apart from the intiuence of that true faith which " works by love and purities the heart." While, therefore, facts may be mentioned as they are repre- sented to us in history, a careful judgment will discrim- inate as to their true moral or evangelical significance. Nor must the important consideration be overlooked that God, who can make the wrath of man praise him, and overrule the most untoward events to the accom- plishment of his own glory, could, and doubtless did, override much that was imperfect, and even censurable, in the mode of promoting a nominal Christianity for the ultimate furtherance of the trutli.
III. Period and Ekmenis of Transition. — There is no positive line of demarcation between the ancient and the mediceval churches. Indeed writers never cease to differ in regard to the limits assigned to each. In point of fact, the former gradually and almost insensibly blended into the latter; but, in a missionary point of view, we are forced to consider the ancient Church as coming to a close when her purity and her aggressive- ness began simultaneously to declme. During the first three centuries Christianity maintained a complete an- tagonism to false religions and pagan worship in all its forms. Conversions to Christianity were individual, not national; the new faith made its way upward from the humbler strata of society to the higher, from the Cata- combs to the palace, till at length the number of con- verts became too great and too influential to be ignored either by emperors or by senates. In the 4th century we have the example of the emperor Constantine, as yet unbaptized, taking an active part in preaching and in the councils of the Church; and subsequently the leading missionary efforts were specially addressed to kings and princes, to whose determination their subjects were expected to conform.
One of the saddest aspects of the closing period of the ancient Church appeared in tlie growing tendency on the part of the clergy to accept nominal instead of real conversions, outward conformity instead of actual faith. Many bishops encouraged this tendency, wishing to make what they called conversion as easy as possible. Hence they baptized even those who lived in open sin, and who plainly indicated their purpose to continue in it. Perhaps they imagined that such persons, when once introduced to the Church, would be more easily and cer- tainly reformed, although, for the most part, they merely told them what they would have to believe in order to be Christians, without insisting on the obligations of a holy life, lest the candidates should decline baptism. " These corrupt modes of procedure originated partly in the erroneous notions of worth attached to a barely out- ward baptism and outward Church fellowship, and partly in the false notions of what constituted faith, and of the relation of the doctrines of faith and of morals in Chris- tianity to each other" (Neander, CImrch Hist, ii, 100). Against such views and measures there were not want- ing remonstrances on the part of such men as Chrysos- tom and Augustine. The former, reprobating bishops animated by a false zeal for increasing the numbers of nominal Christians, says : " Our Lord utters it as a pre- cept, ' Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, nei- ther cast j'e your pearls before swine.' But, through foolish vanity and ambition, we have subverted this command too by admitting those corrupt, unbelieving men, who are full of evil, before thej' have given us any satisfactory evidence of a change of mind, to partake of the sacraments. It is on this account manv of those
who were thus baptized have fallen away and occasioned much scandal." Augustine complained: "How many seek Jesus only that he may benefit them in earthly matters ! One man has a lawsuit, so he seeks the inter- cession of the clergy; another is oppressed by his supe- rior, so he takes refuge in the Church; and still another that he may secure the wife of his choice. The Church is full of such persons. Seldom is Jesus sought for Je- sus's sake." Nor were worldly motives the only agen- cies which led to spurious and hypocritical conversions. Many were avi^akened by outward impressions: some supposed they had seen miraculous effects produced by the sign of the cross ; others were affected by dreams, and did little more than exchange one superstition for another. Against these insidious and contagious errors Augustine uttered faithful exhortations and warnings in his tract De Catechizandis Rudibus and other writ- ings, but the current of things, and the swelling tide of barbarian invasion, greatly antagonized his influence. Some were doubtless led from poor beginnings to better results, becoming in the end true Christians, although they entered the Church from unworthy motives; but far earlier, and more extensively than is generally sup- posed, the true spiritual character of the ancient Church, as a whole, had lamentably declined, and with it all genuine zeal for the spiritual conversion of men.