Ten acres were covered by the splendid palace he had here constructed. It was built of freestone, and flanked by sixteen towers. The principal entrance was appropriately named “the Golden Gate.” Gorgeous temples were reared in honor of the pagan gods, whom Diocletian ostentatiously adored. The surrounding grounds were embellished in the highest style of landscape-gardening. The saloons and banqueting-halls were filled with exquisite paintings and statuary. But even here, in the most lovely retreat which nature and art could create, man’s doom of sorrow pursued the emperor. The keenest of domestic griefs pierced his heart, darkening the splendors of his saloons, and blighting the flowers of his arbors and parterres. Bitterly had Diocletian persecuted the Christians. He had made every effort to infuse new vigor into pagan worship. Was this his earthly punishment? We know not: we simply know that for long years he wandered woe-stricken, consumed by remorse, through those magnificent saloons, into which one ray of joy never penetrated. The dread future was before him. Pagan as he assumed to be, he had no faith in paganism: he upheld the institution simply as a means of overawing the populace. There is a marked difference between Christianity and all forms of idolatry. The intellectual men of olden time――Cicero, Plato, Aristotle――despised the popular religion: they regarded it merely as an instrument to intimidate the ignorant masses. But, with Christianity, the ablest men, the profoundest thinkers, are its most earnest advocates. The presidents of our colleges, the most prominent men at the bar, the most distinguished of our statesmen, our ablest scientific men, our most heroic generals, are men who revere Christianity; who seek its guidance through life, and its support in death. The death of Diocletian is shrouded in mystery. Some say he was poisoned. Some affirm, that, tortured by remorse, he committed suicide. We simply know that he died with no beam of hope illuminating the gloom of his dying-bed. He passed away to the judgment-seat of Christ, there to answer for persecuting Christ’s disciples with cruelty never surpassed. Such was the condition of the world at the commencement of the fourth century. In the first century of the Christian era, we have mainly a series of execrable emperors, who, by their extravagance and their crimes, were sowing the seeds for the dissolution of the empire. In the second century, Christianity begins slowly to make itself felt. We have some very good emperors, but with no power to stem the torrent of corruption at full flood. One after another they are swept away by poison and the dagger. Corruption rolls on in resistless surges. Christianity, earnest, active, and heroic, then in its infancy, could do very little to stay such billows in their impetuous career. It could only work upon individual hearts. But thus it gradually spread its life, giving leaven through the mass.