“Oh !” said Caesar, “we will soon root up this Christianity, off with their heads.” The different governors hastened one after another of the disciples to death, but the more they persecuted them the more they multiplied. The pro-consuls had orders to destroy Christians; the more they hunted them the more Christians there were, until at last men pressed to the judgment seat and asked to he permitted to die for Christ. They invented torments, they dragged the saints at the heels of wild horses, they laid them upon redhot gridirons, they pulled off the skin from their flesh piece by piece, they were sawn asunder, they were wrapped up in skins and daubed with pitch, and set in Nero’s gardens at night to burn, they were left to rot in dungeons, they were made a spectacle to all men in the amphitheatre, the bears hugged them to death, the lions tore them to pieces, the wild bulls tossed them upon their horns and yet Christianity spread.
All the swords of the legionaries which had put to rout the armies of all nations, and had overcome the invincible Gaul and the savage Briton, could not withstand the feebleness of Christianity, for the weakness of God is mightier than men.
From a sermon entitled "God's Strange Choice," delivered August 28, 1864. Flickr photo by Paul Russell; some rights reserved.
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