20 



of communication not only throughout England and Wales 

 and into Scotland — and see how complete was that system of 

 communication, how carefully guarded, and how sldlfiilly 

 planned — but we find these roads extending throughout every 

 country which had been brought under the sway of Koman 

 rule. We trace them from the banks of the Euphrates, and 

 from the borders of the Ethiopian and Lybian deserts, to the 

 extremities of our own island, and from the Rhine and the 

 Danube to the extreme limits of Spain, and even into 

 Maritania. Wherever the power of Rome penetrated, there 

 it left behind this monument of rule, and this precursor of 

 civilisation ; and before the decline and fall of the Romans 

 there had been constructed an unbroken line of communica- 

 tion between Syria and Britain, between the Euxine Sea and 

 the pillars of Hercules. By means of these Hnes of commu- 

 nication the Imperial decrees could be carried without inter- 

 ruption from the central point of Rome to the remotest 

 comers of the empire in an incredibly short space of time ; 

 armies could be marched to any point with the utmost 

 speed, and thus centralisation and unity of purpose was 

 wonderfully achieved. 



If commerce and civilisation, if law and justice, had rolled 

 on with the stream of conquest, very different would have 

 been the condition of all those countries at the zenith of 

 Roman greatness. But while the power of conquest paved 

 the way for future good, there was something wanting to 

 follow in its wake and complete the work of consolidation, 

 and this was not to be found in the system of Pagan Rome. 

 Yet these highways of the Roman armies had a use for which 

 they were never originally designed, — they furnished high- 

 ways for messengers of a far higher and sublimer system 

 than was ever dreamed of by their constructors. On these 

 roads travelled the heralds of peace and goodwill to man, and 

 the feet of those who were to spread the pure light of Chris- 



