Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Present State, Prospects and Responsibilities of the Methodist Episcopal Church
From the time of the outpouring of the Spirit Upon the day of Pentecost, until the exaltation of Constantine the Great, in the beginning of the fourth century, to the im perial government, Christianity had been rapidly winning its way in the midst of violent oppositions, and some times of cruel persecutions, until it finally established itself in the heart of the Roman Empire. From that in auspicious period it gradually lost much of its vital principles, by accommodating itself to the maxims of the world, and paying obeisance to civil rulers, and seek ing to shape itself according to the political views of men invested with temporal power. It continued its retrograde motion until finally it degenerated into a strange plant, nourished in a corrupted soil. Twelve centuries of midnight darkness brooded over the Church, and so beclouded the Sun of Righteousness that his rays were scarcely perceptible, and even the stars of the firmament gave but a twinkling light, to direct the weary pilgrim in the path to life and immortality.
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