How the first Christians Lived.
An approved writer, in describing the religious character of the primitive Christians, observed that when they gave themselves to Christ, they counted all things lost for him and his salvation; and the surrender was an honest, whole-hearted transaction, never to be reconsidered, never to be regretted. Hence, from the hour of their conversion, they made little account of property. If it was confiscated by government, or destroyed in a mob, they "took joyfully the spoiling of their goods," assured that in heaven they had an incorruptible inheritance. When the cause required, how ready were they to lay all at the feet of the missionaries. Generally they were poor. A rich Christian! why, such a thing was hardly known. However it may be now, it was then "easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And if, as an act of special sovereignty, a man of wealth was converted, he seldom retained his riches for a long period; for such was his sympathy for the despoiled and suffering brotherhood, and such his solicitude for the conversion of the perishing, that his funds were poured forth as water. Yet poor as were the first Christians, they were liberal to a degree unsurpassed. We from our much give little. They, from their little, gave much. "Their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality." Baptized covetousness was the product of a later age. They understood Christ to be in earnest, when, standing but one step from the throne of the universe, he said: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." It was not, therefore, with them a matter to be considered, whether they should go or not go. The command was positive and peremptory; and how could they escape from the obligation? With us, to stay is the rule, to go is the exception.—Wonder not that they accomplished so much, wonder not that we accomplish so little. They did not wait indolently for openings, but went forth either to find them or to make them. If defeated at one point, instead of returning to Jerusalem in despondency, and writing a book on the impracticability of Christian missions, they proceeded to another and more distant field, and then to another, until they had gone over the appointed territory. Their piety was enterprising; the spirit of obedience made it such.—Selected.