There is but one thing that Christians have not in common, and that one thing is their wives.

They do not feast as if they should die to-morrow, nor build as if they should never die.

The objects of their life are innocence, justice, patience, temperance, chastity.
To this noble exposition of Christian belief and life in his day, Tertullian does not hesitate to add an ominous warning to the magistrates he is addressing--ominous, for it was a forecast of a great event soon to come to pass: "Our origin is but recent, yet already we fill all that your power acknowledges--cities, fortresses, islands, provinces, the assemblies of the people, the wards of Rome, the palace, the senate, the public places, and especially the armies.

We have left you nothing but your temples.

Reflect what wars we are able to undertake! With what promptitude might we not arm ourselves were we not restrained by our religion, which teaches us that it is better to be killed than to kill!" Before he closes his defense, Tertullian renews an assertion which, carried into practice, as it subsequently was, affected the intellectual development of all Europe.