The Conservation of Vitality. 



many noble efforts of reform by the philosophers 

 of the time, but very little impression was made, 

 superstition and vice being the supreme in- 

 fluences. " The criminal and frivolous pleasures 

 of a decrepit civilisation left no thought for the 

 immediate duties of the day, or the fearful trials 

 of the morrow. Unbridled lust, and unblushing 

 indecency, admitted no sanctity in the marriage 

 tie. The rich and powerful established harems, 

 in the recesses of which their wives lingered 

 neglected and despised. The banquet, the 

 theatre, and the circus exhausted what little 

 strength and energy were left by domestic ex- 

 cesses. The poor aped the vices of the rich, and 

 hideous depravity reigned supreme and invited 

 the vengeance of Heaven. Such rare souls as 

 remained pure amid the prevailing contamination 

 would naturally take refuge in the convent of 

 severe ascetics, and seek absolute seclusion from 

 a world whose every touch was pollution." 

 (H. G. Lea : " Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal 

 Celibacy," p. 85.) 



" Salvian must be heard in his denunciation 

 against the licentiousness of the fifth century. 

 ' Among the chaste barbarians, we alone are 

 unchaste ; the very barbarians are shocked at 

 our impurities. . . . We cherish, they 

 shrink from, incontinence ; we shrink from, 

 they are enamoured of purity ; fornication, ' 

 which with them is a crime and a disgrace, with us 

 is a glory/ " (" History of Latin Christianity," 

 Dean Milman, Vol. I., p. 383.) 



The fact of these barbarians being chaste, as 

 most authors seem to assert, speaks well for the 



IN 



