This spirit of hate has had at least one holiday at the expense of
Christian faith. On the night of the 18th of July, 64, Rome was swept
with fire. Six days and nights it raged. Ruined was the world's
metropolis and excited were the wo-stricken people. Nero, whose
opinions of Christianity, by the way, were wonderfully like the
orator's, was king, and the people suspected that this royal monster
did it. Men told of how he exulted over the sea of flame as he watched
it from the tower of Maecenas; and whatever the truth of this may be,
it is certain that for the rage of the people Nero must have a victim,
and Tacitus tells us that he charged the Christians with the crime.
Then opened in Rome the awful carnival of bloodshed that the orator
never mentions, in which horrible modes of torture and excruciating
methods of producing pain vied with each other in satisfying the
demands of death. Women bound to raging bulls and dragged to death
were not without the companionship of others who, in the evening, in
Nero's garden, were coated with pitch, covered with tar, bound to
stakes of pine, lighted with fire, and sent to run aflame with the
hatred of Christianity. Through the crowd of sufferers a gentleman,
who was ultra-liberal as the orator, drove about, fantastically
attired as a charioteer, and the people were wild with delight.
Domitian had the same ideas, and severe were his persecutions of the
new heresy. This was the day on which infidelity was so full of the
love of freedom that it cried: "The Christians to the lions!"

And so I might recount to you how for hundreds of years the Church
found out how early and unchristianized infidelity loved freedom of
thought. To a type of liberals, it has for years seemed a joy to go
to the places in the old world and note how intolerant the Church has
been. Now I suggest to any one that he go and visit some of the places
where men who thought of Christianity as negativism thinks showed