They burrowed in the Catacombs, they fastened
themselves upon a decaying and magnificent civilization like the
parasites they were. A series of political catastrophes, a popular
uprising against the rotten emperors of decadent Rome, and the wide
growth of the socialist idea--these things and an unscrupulous man,
Constantine the Great, put the Christians firmly in the saddle. And soon
came cataracts of blood. If the tales of the imperial persecutions are
true, then hath Christianity been revenged a million fold; where her
skirt has trailed there has been the cruel stain of slaughter. It must
not be forgotten, too, that immorality of the grossest sort was promised
the deluded sectarians, compared with which the Mahometan paradise is
spiritual. And the end of the world was predicted at the end of every
century, and finally relegated to the millennial celebration of
Christianity's birth. When, in 1000 A.D., this catastrophe did
not occur, the faith received its first great shock.
He summoned to his memory a cloud of witnesses, all contradictory.
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