He that committeth sin is of the devil." So sharp, and stern, and strictly virtuous is apostolic religion, as displayed in these letters.

Is it possible then that these converted heathens did really even approach this standard of morality?
Did this gospel of Christ actually produce any such reformation of their lives?
You have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by giving such information as they knew would be acceptable to the persecutor; you have the testimony of the two aged deaconesses, under torture; you have the unwilling, but yet express, testimony of their torturer and murderer, that all his cruel ingenuity could discover nothing worse than an excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy.

What, then, does this philosophic inspector of entrails, and adorer of idols, call an excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy?
Why, they bound themselves by the most solemn religious services, not to be guilty of theft, robbery, or adultery; not to falsify their word, nor deny a pledge committed to them; and when some senseless blocks of brass were carried on men's shoulders, into the court-house, to represent a mortal man, they would not adore them, nor pray to them; no, not though this philosopher compiled the liturgy, and set the example.

For this refusal, and this alone, he ordered them away to death.

Doubtless they heard, in their hearts, the well-known words, "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.