CHAPTER V.
GENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.
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In that early era persecution was rife and cruelty relentless.
It was the time of Caligula, who mourned that the Roman people had not one neck, so that he could cut it off at a single blow; of Nero, whose evening garden parties were lighted by the forms of blazing Christians; of Vespasian, who sewed good men in skins of wild beasts to be worried to death by dogs.

In that day faith and death walked together.
Fulfilling such dangers, the disciples came together secretly at midnight.

But the spy was abroad, and despite all precautions, from time to time brutal soldiers discovered the place of meeting, and, bursting in, dragged the worshipers off to prison.

Then a cruel stratagem was adopted that looked to the discovery of those who secretly cherished faith.