After suffering frightful persecutions for three centuries, the Church
had at last nominally conquered the Roman Empire; nominally, because
although Christianity was to live, the Empire had to die. "No medicine
could have prevented the diseased old body from dying. The time had
come. When the wretched inebriate embraces a spiritual religion with one
foot in the grave, with a constitution completely undermined, and the
seeds of death planted, then no repentance or lofty aspiration can
prevent physical death. It was so in Rome." The death-throes were long
and lingering, as befits the end of a mighty giant, but death was
certain. There are many facts which explain the inability of a
conquering faith to save a tottering empire, but it is impracticable for
us to enter upon that wide field. Some help may be gained from that
which follows.

Of morals, Rome was destitute. She possessed the material remains and
superficial acquirements of a proud civilization, such as great public
highways, marble palaces, public baths, temples and libraries. Elegance
of manners and acquisitions of wealth indicate specious outward
refinement. But these things are not sufficient to guarantee the
permanence of institutions or the moral welfare of a nation. In the
souls of men there was a fatal degeneracy. There was outward prosperity
but inward corruption.

Professor Samuel Dill, in his highly instructive work on "Roman Society
in the Last Century of the Western Empire," points out the fact that
Rome's fall was due to economic and political causes as well as to the
deterioration of her morals. A close study of these causes, however,
will reveal the presence of moral influences. Professor Dill says: "The
general tendency of modern inquiry has to discover in the fall of that
august and magnificent organization, not a cataclysm, precipitated by