ABSTRACT
Three hundred years after the supposed death of the alleged founder of Christianity, a candidate for the imperial throne was converted to the faith, and became, with Christian help, sole ruler of the Roman empire. During these centuries, down to the time of the Reformation, the Greek and Roman Churches are, practically, our only representatives of Christianity, and it is their fruits which we must gather. The first stake was raised in Spain, and the first burned heretic shows darkly red in the fourth century after Christ. Protestant Christianity in America showed itself worthy of the root whence it sprang. But Christianity loves darkness rather than light, because ignorance is the condition of its authority. How Christianity has darkened the innocent brightness of the world is known to every student Roman Catholic Christianity made a miserable life a holy life, but was content to leave it to the religious only: Protestant Christianity forced it on all alike.
