which it bows; it beholds no majesty to which it can look up. It is
sublime self-conceit, and it has no hesitancy in telling the whole
human race that at its grandest moments it has been wrong. This
egotism dared to become active in Rome, and it asked the Christians,
in the person of the Emperor, to worship him, and to strew incense
about him. "I will honor the Emperor," said Theophilus, "not by
worshiping him, but by praying for him." Such men as that infidelity
kindly put to death. Around their quivering limbs the infidelity of
that day made the fagots to flame, and it taught the red tongues of
cruel death to creep about their smoking bodies.

Men who believed that the Bible's influence was what infidelity says
it is, made the funeral pyre for Polycarp, the populace bringing fuel
for the fire, and while the flames made a glory of their lambent
glare, he cried out: "Six and eighty years have I served him and he
has done me nothing but good, and how could I curse him, my Lord
and Savior. If you would know what I am, I tell you frankly, I am a
Christian." He did his own thinking, and was brave enough to avow his
opinion, for which hate of Christianity duly burned him. This was the
way infidelity treated free speech. In that way it unchained the soul
of Polycarp. Infidelity's idea of Christianity sent the martyrs of
Numidia and Paulus out of the world while they were praying for their
murderers. Who believed in freedom then? Infidelity's idea of the
message of the Bible followed the Christian like a wild beast, and
in the catacomb of Calixtus drew from the pursued soul the pathetic
exclamation: "Oh, sorrowful times, when we can not even in caves
escape our foes!" And all this was true, because they said,
"Recompense to no man evil for evil"; "Pray for them that despitefully
use you and persecute you."