Speaking further of this time in another chapter he says: “The pagan temples were pulled down or converted into Christian churches: the exercise of the old priesthood was proscribed and the idols destroyed; elegant structures for Christian worship were raised, and those already erected, enlarged and beautified; the episcopacy was increased and honored with great favors and enriched with vast endowments; the ritual received many additions; the habiliments of the clergy were pompous, and the whole of the Christian service at once exhibited a scene of worldly grandeur and external parade. What a mighty change! But a short time since, and Christianity was held in sovereign contempt: now she is a favorite at court, and the companion of princes. Alas! such is the change, that it scarcely affords ground for triumph. The kingdom of our God and his Christ is become a kingdom of this world, and the church of Jesus reduced to a mere worldly sanctuary. The glory is departed, the gold is become dim, and the fine gold is changed. “Indeed prelatical pride had been rising very high for a century before this. The pastors had forgotten their Master’s instruction. ‘Be ye not called Rabbi: for ye are brethren.’ Lord bishops and archbishops and all the spirit of such distinction had been long enough upon the advance to congratulate such an emperor as Constantine. The materials for a hierarchy having been prepared it was no difficult thing for a set of worldly-minded bishops, countenanced by a prince, to put them together. Under all these circumstances, real religion was not likely to be bettered by such a reverse in external affairs, and so the event proved. The ancient contest, which was for the faith once delivered unto the saints, declined apace, and a strife for worldly honor, fleshly gratification, and spiritual dominion substituted in its stead.” Such was the true condition of things in the year 311. Surely there had been a change, the kingdom of God had become the kingdom of the world, the glory was gone, strivings for worldly honor, fleshly gratification, and spiritual dominion had taken the place of “striving for the faith once delivered to the saints.” What a change from the humble, self-denying, flesh crucifying days of Christ and the apostles. Truly we can say sometime before this the morning light had dimmed and died, and darkness intervened. The historian does not fix this date (311) as the beginning of the dark noonday. (The reader already begins to see, no doubt, why it was dark at the noontime.) He says in a preceding chapter, “About A.D. 264, a considerable stir was made by Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch. ‘Great was the falling off in this church since the renowned Ignatius. The principles of Paul were exceedingly loose, and his practise was correspondent.’ He rejected the divinity of the Son and substituted his own reason for the light of the Spirit. The way in which he lived fully proved that he was a man of the world.”