after lost his way during a thick fog, while hunting, implored in vain the help of his idols; he then remembered the words of the Christian slave, and prayed to her God. The mist having suddenly dispersed, he at once referred it to the power of the unknown God. After frequent conferences with the woman he embraced Christianity with his whole court, and despatched ambassadors to Constantinople to desire that teachers might be sent to instruct his people.

*

Slavery was a very influential means of introducing the Gospel into the houses of the rich and noble. So great, indeed, was the zeal of the Christians in the early ages of the church, that many voluntarily engaged in temporal slavery for the single end of rescuing some fellow creature from spiritual bondage. In this way Serapion, called Sindonites, sold himself to a Gentile actor; with the utmost respect and fidelity he discharged the lowest offices of his station, till his labour of love was

* This fact is related by Rufinus, who lived at the commencement of the fifth century, in his Ecclesiastical History, cap. v., as having occurred about A.D. 320—330.

finally rewarded by the conversion of his master with his wife and family. Filled with gratitude for the benefit he had conferred, his master at his baptism, restored him to liberty, and presented him with the amount of his purchase, which Serapion, with equal generosity, devoted to the necessities of the poor.

History furnishes numerous and painful proofs of the cruelty and contempt with which this unhappy class of our fellow creatures were treated by their heathen masters; even a Roman matron is represented by Juvenal as exclaiming, "O madman! is a slave a man?" We may therefore readily conceive that a religion which rises on all with healing on its wings, but is sent in a more especial manner to comfort them that mourn, should meet with a warm reception from the despised and oppressed slaves. Many, doubtless, embraced it on this account, without entertaining any higher appreciation of its excellence; yet to others it became the seed of a hidden, spiritual life, growing up, men knew not how, under the most adverse circumstances; yet, without any change of outward condition, it imparted an

elevation of thought and feeling, a strength of faith, and a patient continuance in well-doing, which must have astonished the heathen master.*

As the wealthy Greeks and Romans retained a large establishment of dependents and slaves, it could scarcely fail that some of them should be converts to Christianity. Saint Paul, in writing to the Philippians from Rome, sends the salutations of Cæsar's household. In the palace of the Emperor Severus we meet with the Christian physician, Proculus Torpacion, who, having cured him of a dangerous illness,

* In the beautiful and affecting history of Onesimus, for instance, we see how thoroughly he received the knowledge of the truth in the love of it, how it brought him, humbled and penitent, to the feet of his offended and injured master, who in the enlarged spirit of the Gospel received him, not as a servant, but as a friend and a brother.

This conduct of the Christian Philemon stands out in striking contrast to that of the heathen master, mentioned by Tertullian, under similar circumstances. He had been very indulgent to a knavish slave, so long as he was a heathen, but no sooner had he embraced Christianity and become a religious and honest servant, than his master, from hatred to the Gospel, sent him to prison.

disposed his otherwise ferocious master to treat the Christians with great lenity for some time; a Christian nurse, and a Christian preceptor, were in the same manner in attendance on his son Caracalla. Though these external advantages could not draw the heart of the young prince to the Saviour, they at least imbued him with an early predilection for his disciples. From an interesting anecdote related by Spartian, we learn that when only seven years of age, Caracalla expressed great indignation on seeing one of his playmates punished merely because he was a Christian; and, by a strange mental anomaly, inexplicable to human reason, throughout the whole of his reign, marked as it was by infamy and blood, he extended his protection to the followers of Christ.

We find some interesting particulars of the manner in which the slaves introduced Christianity into their masters' families, in Origen's third book against Celsus. He gives the very words of this opponent to our religion; and though written in a hostile and exaggerated spirit, it is no doubt correct in the general facts.

"We meet," says Celsus, "in many houses, with shoemakers and fullers (slaves who performed those duties), the meanest and most ignorant men in the world, who have hardly the courage to open their mouth in the presence of their owners or overseers, but are vastly eloquent, and discourse of the most wonderful matters when they are left alone with their masters' children, or with the women, who are not much wiser. Then they begin to say, you must believe us rather than your parents and tutors; they are blind and ignorant, and can neither think nor do anything that is right, because their heads are filled with false notions. It is we only who know how you ought to live and walk; and if you follow us, you and all your family will be happy. If in the midst of their fine discourses some sensible person should enter unawares, the more cowardly among them are affrighted and hold their peace, while such as are bolder urge the children to throw off the yoke, saying, that they cannot tell them anything good or useful in the presence of their father or teachers, lest they should cause them to be punished. That if they desire to learn