The opening of Preface
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.