““Pastor Bates was a careful reader of theology, literature and history. He delighted especially in Gibbon's woeful treatment of Christians in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , perusing the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters routinely and with glee. He enjoyed brilliant heretics as only the confidently faithful can, seeing in Gibbon the inspired rantings of a cheerleader working himself into a frenzy for a losing team, getting especially rabid come the dreaded fourth quarter, when Jesus begins running up the score.””
