This process continued after the Empire of the Cæsars passed away. The
continuity of Roman history has been psychological. Humanity has "held
a thought." Rome became a fixed idea. It exerted an hypnotic influence
over the barbarians who had overcome all else. The Holy Roman Empire
was a creation of the Germanic imagination, and yet it was a real
power. Many a hard-headed Teutonic monarch crossed the Alps at the
head of his army to demand a higher sanction for his own rule of
force. When he got himself crowned in the turbulent city on the Tiber
he felt that something very important had happened. Just how important
it was he did not fully realize till he was back among his own people
and saw how much impressed they were by his new dignities.

Hans Christian Andersen begins one of his stories with the assertion,
"You must know that the Emperor of China is a Chinaman and that all
whom he has about him are Chinamen also." The assertion is so logical
in form that we are inclined to accept it without question. Then we
remember that in Hans Christian Andersen's day, and for a long time
before, the Emperor of China was not a Chinaman and the great
grievance was that Chinamen were the very people he would not have
about him.

When we speak of the Roman Catholic Church, we jump at the conclusion
that it is the church of the Romans and that the people of Rome have
had the most to do with its extension. This theory has nothing to
recommend it but its extreme verbal simplicity. As a matter of fact,
Rome has never been noted for its pious zeal. Such warmth as it has
had has been imparted to it by the faithful who have been drawn from
other lands; as, according to some theorists, the sun's heat is kept
up by a continuous shower of meteors falling into it.