birth' out of those very fallen masses who insulted and persecuted
her; in spite of having to endure within herself continual outbursts
of the evil passions in which her members had once indulged without
cheek; in spite of a thousand counterfeits which sprang up around
her and within her, claiming to be parts of her, and alluring men to
themselves by that very exclusiveness and party arrogance which
disproved their claim; in spite of all, she had conquered. The very
emperors had arrayed themselves on her side. Julian's last attempt
to restore paganism by imperial influence had only proved that the
old faith had lost all hold upon the hearts of the masses; at his
death the great tide-wave of new opinion rolled on unchecked, and
the rulers of earth were fain to swim with the stream; to accept, in
words at least, the Church's laws as theirs; to acknowledge a King
of kings to whom even they owed homage and obedience; and to call
their own slaves their 'poorer brethren,' and often, too, their
'spiritual superiors.'

But if the emperors had become Christian, the Empire had not. Here
and there an abuse was lopped off; or an edict was passed for the
visitation of prisons and for the welfare of prisoners; or a
Theodosius was recalled to justice and humanity for a while by the
stern rebukes of an Ambrose. But the Empire was still the same:
still a great tyranny, enslaving the masses, crushing national life,
fattening itself and its officials on a system of world-wide
robbery; and while it was paramount, there could be no hope for the
human race. Nay, there were even those among the Christians who
saw, like Dante afterwards, in the 'fatal gift of Constantine,' and
the truce between the Church and the Empire, fresh and more deadly
danger. Was not the Empire trying to extend over the Church itself
that upas shadow with which it had withered up every other form of