national life is grounded on, is the development of, the life of the
family. And where the root is corrupt, the tree must be corrupt
likewise. It must be so. For Asmodeus does not walk alone. In his
train follow impatience and disappointment, suspicion and jealousy,
rage and cruelty, and all the passions which set man's hand against
his fellow-man. It must be so. For profligacy is selfishness; and
the family, and the society, the nation, exists only by casting away
selfishness and by obeying law:- not only the outward law, which says
in the name of God, 'Thou shalt not,' but the inward law, the Law of
Christ, which says, 'Thou must;' the law of self-sacrifice, which
selfish lust tramples under foot, till there is no more cohesion left
between man and man, no more trust, no more fellow-help, than between
the stags who fight for the hinds; and God help the nation which has
brought itself to that!

No wonder, therefore, if Salvian's accounts of Gaulish profligacy be
true, that Gaulish recklessness reached at last a pitch all but
incredible. It is credible, however shocking, that as he says, he
himself saw, both at Treves, and another great city (probably
Cologne, Colonia Agrippina, or 'The Colony' par excellence) while the
destruction of the state was imminent, 'old men of rank, decrepit
Christians, slaves to gluttony and lust, rabid with clamour, furious
with bacchanalian orgies.' It is credible, however shocking, that
all through Gaul the captivity was 'foreseen, yet never dreaded.'
And 'so when the barbarians had encamped almost in sight, there was
no terror among the people, no care of the cities. All was possest
by carelessness and sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, sleep, according to
that which the prophet saith: A sleep from the Lord had come over
them.' It is credible, however shocking, that though Treves was four
times taken by the barbarians, it remained just as reckless as ever;