One of the most famous books of all time is Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in which this eighteenth-century historian traces what happened to that mighty empire and how it disintegrated from within. In that book is a passage that Winston Churchill memorized because he felt it so descriptive. Gibbon says this concerning the church within the empire:

“While that great body [Roman Empire] was invaded by open violence or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol.”