My theme is a melancholy one. It is the story of what happens to a Church of second-class citizens in a land dominated by rulers of an alien religion, an alien culture, and, officially at least, an alien race. We all know, with Tertullian, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. But when the martyrs are not fiercely persecuted but, instead, merely consistently humiliated, the outcome is less stimulating. It leads to decline and decay.