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heart agitated by the distresses of the world, like that vessel in which Christ slept? Behold the reason why thy heart is agitated. That vessel in which Christ sleeps, is thy heart, where faith sleeps. The apostle says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith" (Eph. iii. 17); by faith Christ dwells in thee. Faith present, Christ is present; faith being awake, Christ is awake. Faith forgetting itself, Christ is asleep. Has God given thee some inconsiderable thing in sending Christ to thee at the time when the world was growing old, to revive thee when all things are sinking? When all things are growing old, he comes and makes thee anew. Cleave not to the world in its decrepitude; and be not ashamed to become youthful in Christ. Love the word of God, and no vexation will affect you. Be gentle, sympathize with the sufferers (the fugitives from Italy), receive the sick, and on this occasion, when there are many foreigners, needy and suffering, let your hospitality show itself abundantly. Oh that Christians would do what Christ commands, then the heathen would blaspheme only to their own disgrace."

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The tide of desolation approached Augustin's native land. The wild Vandals invaded North Africa, and spread devastation on all sides. As Arians, they were especially violent against the clergy of the dominant church The question was raised, whether it were allowable for the bishops to save themselves by flight. Augustin spoke strongly against the hirelings who forsook their flocks for which they ought to have been ready to lay down their lives. "Why did they not rather strive boldly, by the Lord's help, against their fear? This is done where love is ardent, and worldly desires do not prevail. For love says: Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended and I burn not?' (2 Cor. xi. 29.) But love is of God. Let us therefore pray that love may be given to us by him who has enjoined it upon us." He then depicts the advantages which the churches might derive from the presence of their bishops in times of the greatest distress. "According to the abilities which the Lord has given them, they will help all; some are baptized, others receive the comHabitare, inquit apostolus, Christum per fidem in cordibus vestris. Per fidem habitat in te Christus. Fides præsens, præsens est Christus; fides vigilans, vigilans est Christus; fides oblita, dormiens est Christus.-August, Serm. 81, § 8.

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munion; all are comforted, edified, encouraged to pray to God, who can avert all that is feared-so that they may be ready in either case, that if the cup cannot pass from them, His will may be done who can will only what is good." As Augustin spent the last days of his advanced age in a city besieged by the barbarians, who threatened its destruction, it was his daily prayer: "May the Lord either deliver the city, or if this be not his will, may he grant his servants strength to prefer his will to theirs, or take them to himself out of the world!"

Amidst the overwhelming stream of desolation, monasticism insured a place of refuge; the privations forced upon persons by the pressure of external necessity, here became matter of free and joyful renunciation. When individuals sought shelter from the raging storms of the world in quiet solitude, they learned how to collect, enjoy, and communicate treasures of which not all the assaults and ravages of barbarian hordes could rob them. Thus Jerome writes, in A.D. 411: “I wish that we renounced the world voluntarily, and not by compulsion. I prefer that freely-adopted poverty which tends to repose, to that forced poverty which is endured as a calamity. Finally, in relation to the miseries of the present time, when the sword rages in every quarter, he is rich enough who does not want bread, and he is powerful enough who is not a slave." But even a monk in this season of desolation could not easily find a place where he would not be disturbed by the universal tribulation, and where the shield of faith was not required, in order to stand firm in the face of threatening destruction. Jerome (A.D. 412), in his quiet retirement at Bethlehem, amidst his zealous biblical studies and labours for the advantage of posterity, was disturbed by the ravaging incursion of the Arab nomads, so that he was obliged to renounce his studies, and, as he writes, "scarcely, through the mercy of Christ, was able to escape out of their hands." Crowds of unfortunate fugitives who, after the capture and plundering of Rome by Alaric, came from that city and other districts of the West that were overwhelmed by the barbarians to Bethlehem, roused his sympathy by their appearance. He himself says, in the preface to the third book of his commentary on Ezekiel: "Everything which has been originated is now destroyed; and what had grown to maturity is now

antiquated. Who could believe that that Rome which had been erected on the world would be involved in ruin, and be at once the mother and grave of its people-that all the shores of the East, of Egypt and of North Africa, would be filled with crowds of the inhabitants of the foremost city in the world, dragged away as bondsmen and bondswomen? That Bethlehem must daily receive, as beggars, persons of both sexes, who once belonged to the nobility, and enjoyed a superabundance of wealth? If we cannot help these, we at least share in their grief, and blend our tears with theirs, and hence we have interrupted our commentary on Ezekiel and almost, all our studies; and, instead, we endeavour to change the words of Scripture into works, and not to preach but to practise piety." Disturbed in the day-time by the crowds of the impoverished, sick and wounded, who had escaped from the hands of the barbarians, and sought in the monasteries shelter, consolation, and help; he was obliged to have recourse to the night, with eyes weakened by old age, in order to be able to continue his labours on the Bible, and to seek repose for his deeply agitated heart in the exposition of the Scriptures.

Chrysostom experienced many severe sufferings, dragged from one place of banishment to another, until his weak body gave way to accumulated toils, what he had often foretold to the people of his charge. As he had often urged upon them the words of Job, "Blessed be the name of the Lord for all things," as the source of all joy and of all consolation under all sufferings, so this was his watchword amidst those trials under which he closed his life as a witness of the truth, the last expression that fell from his dying lips. He thus closes an epistle in which he endeavoured to console his deeply sorrowing friend Olympias, at Constantinople: "Only about one thing I have a requested to make, respecting which I have never ceased to admonish you, to dismiss grief and to praise God, to bless him for all things, even for these sufferings. Thus you will gain the greatest benefits, and give a deathblow to the devil. Thus will all clouds be easily dispersed, and you well enjoyed unalloyed peace." When she had expressed her sorrow, that she could not, by her influence, procure his recall from banishment, he wrote to her: "Why do you mourn, why do you lament, and bring a worse evil on yourself than your enemy could suspend over you? What

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troubles you? That you have not removed me from this place of banishment! Yet you have done your part, since you have set every thing in motion. But if you have not succeeded, that is no ground of sorrow; for perhaps it has pleased God to appoint a longer period to my course, in order that I may obtain a more resplendent crown. Wherefore do you mourn, then, for that which leads us to triumph, since you ought to rejoice that we are honoured with such a distinction far exceeding our deserts. But does the solitude in which I dwell disturb you? and what is more pleasant than a residence here? Rest, peace, no business, and soundness of body. If the city offers nothing to purchase, it makes no difference to me; for I am abundantly supplied. I have never ceased, and shall never cease to say: There is only one evil—sin; everything else is dust and smoke.'” "It is the nature of suffering," he writes, "that those who bear it calmly and steadfastly, thereby raise themselves above every object of dread, out of the reach of the darts of the devil, and learn to despise every thing which can be undertaken against them."

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no change of weather, no cold, no bad nourishment can injure those who are sound in body," he says, "because health can ward off all injuries-so it is with the health of the soul. Even before the reward of heaven, virtue is its own reward. Thus Paul rejoiced when he was scourged and persecuted, and endured a thousand dreadful things. I rejoice under my sufferings for you,' he said. Virtue does not expect its reward first in heaven; already it finds it in the suffering itself: for this is the greatest reward, to suffer for the truth. Hence the company of the apostles departed joyfully from before the Sanhedrim, not only on account of the kingdom of heaven which they had in expectation, but because they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. This in itself is the greatest honour and crown, the victor's prize, the ground of inexhaustible joy."

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PART III.

EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY DURING AND AFTER THE IRRUPTION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS INTO THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

THE world and the glory of it pass away, but the word of God abides for ever, to renew the world and make it young again; to call forth from death a new and more glorious life.

We have seen destruction invade the world-wide empire of that city which arrogated to itself the epithet eternal; and we have seen even those great ecclesiastical establishments, the fruit of the blood of the martyrs, and of the protracted labours of enlightened and devout fathers of the church, carried away by this mighty overwhelming torrent. But while the pagans

hopelessly mourned at the grave of earthly glory, and, filled with despair, beheld all the forms of ancient culture dashed in pieces by the hands of barbarians, devout Christians held fast to the anchor of believing hope, which raised them above all that was changeable, and gave them a firm stand-point in the midst of the destroying waters. They knew that, though heaven and earth might pass away, the words of the Lord could not pass away; and these words were to them, even when surrounded by death, an inexhaustible source of life. The existing ecclesiastical forms, as far as they were connected with the constitution of the Roman empire, necessarily perished in the universal breaking-up of society; but the essence of the church, as of Christianity, could not be touched by any destructive power, and at this period of the world's decrepitude