In every society, the government needs to have what are called police powers. What this means is that the governments need to have the right to uphold the laws. Governments need to have this ability so that they can protect their citizens from others who would seek to prey on them. Without police powers, for example, there is no one to protect us from being murdered or robbed, or otherwise harmed.
The problem is that the government can take away our rights in the process of trying to protect us. For example, let us imagine that the government is worried about drug use. It therefore declares that it has the right to test any person for drug use at any time. It also declares that it has the right to search anyone’s house at any time for evidence of drug manufacture, sale, or use. This would be great for law and order because it would make it much harder to get away with drug crimes, but it would be terrible for our rights.
The Battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day of the American Civil War and is considered one of the major turning points of the war. ... The North was able to use the victory to raise morale, keep the South from gaining diplomatic recognition, and emancipate the slaves in the rebel states.
Heritage day, as its name states, celebrates heritage (obviously). The reason that "closes gaps" from the past is because it celebrates culture that was suppressed in the past, and it promotes diversity and unity that was previously discouraged or prosecuted.
By the third century, Christianity was well established in and around Greece and the Middle East, as well as in Rome, Alexandria, Carthage and a few cities such as Lyons in the 'barbarian' western Europe.
Christianity had largely failed to penetrate Egypt outside Alexandria, or much of western Europe. Even Italy, outside the city of Rome, seems to have largely resisted Christianity. It seems that the Egyptian and Celtic religions had not entered a period of decline and scepticism in the way that the Greco-Roman religion had done. However, there was no impediment to Christians preaching in those areas, other than a lack of interest on the part of the population.
Christian tradition suggests that the Christians suffered constant harrassment and persecution by the Roman authorities. However, Euan Cameron (Interpreting Christian History: The Challenge of the Churches' Past) says, "Contrary to popular tradition, the first three centuries of Christianity were not times of steady or consistent persecution. Persecution was sporadic, intermittent, and mostly local." Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) goes further and, on a number of occasions, praises the pagan Romans for their general tolerance towards Christianity. Widespread and persistent persecution of other faiths only really began with the Christian Empire.
There was a total of perhaps 12 years of official persecution of Christianity during nearly three hundred years in which Christianity existed in the pagan Empire. Otherwise, the Christians were largely allowed to worship as they pleased, and even to proselytise their faith, as long as they took care not to offend others or disturb the peace. This allowed Christianity to prosper and spread far and wide.
Hope this helps :)
