This text comes from our book, Hope for the Ages . Though they had done it for previous emperors, the Senate refused to proclaim Hadrian a god following his death in 138. So, as one of his first acts as emperor, Antoninus persuaded the senators to deify his stepfather—an act of devotion and piety for which he received the title Pius , meaning “affectionately dutiful.” Antoninus Pius’ reign of some 23 years was a period when the Pax Romana  was most perfectly realized. Unlike

This text comes from our book, Hope for the Ages . In the region north and east of Gaul, along the Rhine and Main rivers and northward to the sea, lived a Germanic people called the Franks. For centuries, they had dwelt along the Rhine in three distinct groups: the Salian (who lived near the sea), the Ripuarian (who dwelt inland along the Rhine), and the Chatti. The Franks had not been part of the great invasions of the empire, though in the mid fourth century they had moved

This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part II . In commenting on France’s June rebellion, the Duke of Wellington mused, “France needs a Napoleon! I cannot yet see him. . . . Where is he?” Louis-Napoleon Wellington no doubt knew of the Napoleon who had for two years been a sojourner in London. Wellington probably even knew of this man’s ambition. This Napoleon was Prince Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Emperor Napoleon I. And he was ambitio

This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part I . Martin Luther did not intend to destroy the Catholic Church, nor did he intend to start a separate church. Luther wanted to reform the Church, to bring it back to what it was meant to be—the pure Bride of Christ. Luther was not alone in wanting to reform the Church. Catholic humanists like Desiderius Erasmus of Holland, Thomas More of England, and the Cardinal Francisco Jiménez of Castile protested as loudly as Lut

This text comes from our book, Lands of Hope and Promise . The vigorous Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, had at last, it seemed, stabilized the government of France following the confusions that had followed the French Revolution. With peace established in France, Napoleon began to harbor the dream of a restoration of French power in North America. In 1800, he entered into secret negotiations with Spain over Louisiana, a vast territory stretching from New Orleans i

This text comes from our book, Hope for the Ages . By becoming Catholic and uniting most of Gaul under his rule, Chlodevech had established the first Catholic Germanic kingdom in Europe. Though the significance of this achievement was not apparent in his time or for over 200 years after Chlodevech’s death, history would later understand its meaning. The Germanic peoples would gradually be weaned away from their paganism and Arianism and drawn together by the unifying force of