doubtless been arrested by the good influence which had been brought to
bear upon it; but it was impossible to avert its fall. "Men's hearts,"
as well among the heathen as among the Christians, were "failing them
for fear and for looking after those things that were coming on the
earth." And Christianity was called to meet the argument drawn from the
fact that the visible declension seemed to date from the time when the
new religion was introduced into the Roman world, and that the most
rapid decline had been from the time when it had been accepted as the
religion of the State. It fell to the Bishop of Hippo to write in reply
one of the greatest works ever written by a Christian. Eloquence and
learning, argument and irony, appeals to history and earnest entreaties,
are united to move enemies to acknowledge the truth and to strengthen
the faithful in maintaining it. The writer sets over against each other
the city of the world and the city of God, and in varied ways draws the
contrast between them; and while mourning over the ruin that is coming
upon the great city that had become a world-empire, he tells of the holy
beauty and enduring strength of "the city that hath the foundations."

Apart from the interest attaching to the great subjects handled by St.
Augustine in his many works, and from the literary attractions of
writings which unite high moral earnestness and the use of a cultivated
rhetorical style, his works formed a model for Latin theologians as long
as that language continued to be habitually used by Western scholars;
and to-day both the spirit and the style of the great man have a wide
influence on the devotional and the controversial style of writers on
sacred subjects.

He died at Hippo, August 28th, 430.

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