SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 137 



was established. The most abundant source 

 of virtue which the sympathetic contact of 

 a sublime perception has made to well up 

 in the heart of man, was opene d. ^ The 

 lofty conception of Jesus, scarcely compre- 

 hended by his disciples, sustained consider- 

 able diminution. 



Nevertheless, Christianity prevailed from 

 the first, and prevailed without limit 

 above all other existing forms of faith. 

 Those forms which did not aspire to any 

 absolute worth, which had no solid or- 

 ganization, and which responded to no- 

 thing moral, made but feeble resistance. 

 Some efforts made to reform them, in ac- 

 cordance with the new requirements of 

 mankind, and to introduce into them an 

 element of earnestness and morality, — the 

 attempt of Julian, for instance, — completely 

 failed. The Empire, which believed, not 

 without reason, that its very element was 

 threatened by the growth of a new power — 

 the Church — resisted at first most energeti- 

 cally : it finished by adopting the faith 



