Excerpt from Darkness and Dawn or Scenes in the Days of Nero an Historic Tale I have endeavoured to choose a title for this book which shall truly describe its contents. The Darkness of which I speak is the darkness of a decadent Paganism; the Dawn is the dawn of Christianity. Although the story is continuous, I have called it Scenes in the Days of Nero, because the outline is determined by the actual events of Pagan and Christian history, more than by the fortunes of the characters who are here introduced. In other words, the fiction is throughout controlled and dominated by historic facts. The purport of this tale is no less high and serious than that which I have had in View in every other book which I have written. It has been the illustration of a supreme and deeply interesting problem - the causes, namely, why a religion so humble in its origin and so feeble in its earthly resources as Christianity, won so majestic a victory over the power, the glory, and the intellect of the civilised world. The greater part of the following story has been for some years in manuscript, and, since it was designed, and nearly completed, several books have appeared which deal with the same epoch. Some of these I have not seen. From none of them have I consciously borrowed even the smallest hint. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.