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were saved by a new and a wonderful thing. 

 From the East, the home of religions, had spread, 

 like an exhalation, Christianity, that religion 

 which proves by its survival that it is the fittest 

 sanction for the will of man. This religion, enter- 

 ing as a new spirit into the ancient fabric of 

 Roman Empire, was to hold men's service 

 in heart and soul as well as in body; yet to 

 this end no mere mystic or personal religion 

 could suffice : clothing itself with the political and 

 ritual pride and even with the mythology of the 

 pagan Empire it inspired a new adoration ; but it 

 imposed also upon Europe a catholic and elabo- 

 rated creed. To preserve the authority of the 

 common faith not only must every knee be bowed, 

 not only must every heart be touched, but to build 

 and to repair its fabric every mind must also bring 

 its service. How the scheme of the Faith was built 

 up, how oriental ecstasy and hellenistic subtlety, 

 possessing themselves of the machinery of Roman 

 pomp, were wrought to this end, we may briefly 

 consider. 



As, politically, under Diocletian and Constantine 

 the ancient world gave place to the new, so in 

 the third century philosophy was born again in 



