N or three centuries from the death and resurrection of the Saviour had passed away, before the good news of salvation through him was Spread over all the provinces of the Roman empire, and received with joy by a! Considerable part of their population. Faith in Jesus, the Son of the living God, was proclaimed from the shores of the Red sea 'to those of the Atlantic ocean; from the banks of the Nile to those of the Ebro, the Rhone, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; in all the countries washed by the waters of the Mediterranean, even to the most retired valleys of the Iberian mountainsfi of the Alps, Hemus, and Atlas, and especially through all the cities that were scattered over this immense tract.