160 THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 



one time it seemed as if Barbary was destined to be- 

 come a civilized province after the pattern of Spain 

 and Gaul. Numidian princes adopted the culture of 

 the Greeks ; and Juba was placed on his ancestral 

 throne that he might tame his wild subjects into 

 Roman citizens. But this movement soon perished, 

 and the Moorish chiefs fell back into their bandit 

 life. 



The African Church has obtained imperishable fame. 

 In the days of suffering it brought forth martyrs 

 whose fiery ardour and serene endurance have never 

 been surpassed. In the days of victory it brought 

 forth minds, by whose imperial writings thousands of 

 cultivated men have been enslaved. But this church 

 was, for the most part, confined to the walled cities on the 

 coast, to the farming villages in which the Punic speech 

 was still preserved, and to a few Moorish tribes who 

 lived under Roman rule. In the days of St Augustine, 

 Christianity was in its zenith : and St Augustine com- 

 plains that there were hundreds of Berber chiefs who 

 had never heard the name of Christ. Even in Roman 

 Africa, the triumph of Christianity was not complete. 

 In Carthage itself, Astarte and Moloch were still 

 adored ; and a bare-footed monk could not show him- 

 self in the streets without being pelted by the populace. 

 At a later date, the Moorish tribes became an heretical 

 and hostile sect ; the religious persecutions of the 

 Arian Vandals were succeeded by the persecutions of 

 the Byzantine Greeks. Christianity was divided and 

 almost dead when the Arabs appeared : and the Church 

 which had withstood ten imperial persecutions, suc- 

 cumbed to the tax which the conquerors imposed on 

 " the people of the book." 



The failure of Christianity in Africa was owing to 



