Needy child of holy parents. 
   These treasures are concealed in secret,
   In corners of the churches;
   And it is believed the height of piety
   To strip your sweet children. 
   Bring out your treasures,
   Which by evil arts of persuasion
   You have heaped up and hold,
   Which you shut up in darkling cave. 
   Public utility demands this,
   The privy purse demands it, the treasury demands it,
   That the soldiers may be paid for their services,
   And the commander may benefit thereby. 
   This is your dogma, then: 
   Give every man his own. 
   Now Caesar recognises his own
   Image, stamped on the coin. 
   What you know to be Caesar’s, to Caesar
   Give; surely what I ask is just. 
   If I am not mistaken, your Deity
   Coins no money,
   Nor when he came did he bring
   Golden Jacobuses[3] with him;
   But he gave his precepts in words,
   Empty in point of pocket. 
   Fulfil the promise of the words
   Which you sell the round world over. 
   Give up your hard cash willingly,
   Be rich in words.

(Prudentius, Hymn on St. Lawrence).

Whom does this speaker resemble.  Against whom does he rage?  What Church is it whose sacred vessels, lamps, and ornaments he is pillaging, whose ritual he overthrows?  Whose golden patens and silver chalices, sumptuous votive offerings and rich treasure, does he envy?  Why, the man is a Lutheran all over.  With what other cloak did our Nimrods[4] cover their brigandage, when they embezzled the money of their Churches and wasted the patrimony of Christ?  Take on the contrary Constantine the Great, that scourge of the persecutors of Christ, to what Church did he restore tranquillity?  To that Church over which Pope Silvester presided, whom he summoned from his hiding-place on Mount Soracte that by his ministry he might receive our baptism.  Under what auspices was he victorious?  Under the sign of the cross.  Of what mother was he the glorious son?  Of Helen.  To what Fathers did he attach himself?  To the Fathers of Nice.  What manner of men were they?  Such men as Silvester, Mark, Julius, Athanasius, Nicholas.  What seat did he ask for in the Synod?  The last.  Oh how much more kingly was he on that seat than the Kings who have ambitioned a title not due to them!  It would be tedious to go into further details.  But from these two [Emperors, Decius and Constantine], the one our deadly enemy, the other our warm friend, it may be left to the reader’s conjecture to fix on points of closest resemblance to the one and to the other in the history of our own times.  For as it was our cause that went through its agony under Decius, so our cause it was that came out triumphant under Constantine.[5]