Note 3 — Chapter XXXIX · THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY—1784–1794.

This rapid spread of Christian ideas may be understood if we consider, as Dallet points out, the customs of the people. In every house there is the room open to the street, where everybody, friend or stranger, known or unknown, may come and talk or hear the news and discuss events. Nothing is kept secret, and being a nation of gossips and loungers, the news of any event, or the expression of a fresh idea, spreads like fire on the prairie. A doctrine so startlingly new, and preached as it was by men already famous for their learning, would at once excite the public curiosity, set all tongues running, and fire many hearts. Though in most cases the new flame would soon die out, leaving hardly enough ashes to mark a fire, yet the steady glow of altered lives would not pale even before torture and death. ↑