72 



PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



was soon exhausted, there was no limit to the pro- 

 duction of reHcs of their person or belongings, as 

 of filings from the chains of S. Peter, and from the 

 gridiron of S. Lawrence. The catacombs yielded 

 any number of the bodies of martyrs, and* Rome be- 

 came a huge manufactory to meet the demands for 

 wonder-working relics from every part of Christen- 

 dom. A sceptical feeling might be aroused at the 

 claims of a dozen abbeys to possession of the verita- 

 ble crown of thorns wherewith the majesty of the 

 sufifering Christ was mocked, but it was silenced be- 

 fore the numerous fragments of his cross, since in- 

 genuity has computed that this must have contained 

 at least one hundred and eighty million cubic mille- 

 metres, whereas the total cubic volume of all the 

 known relics is but five millions. " It must," re- 

 marks Gibbon (Decline and Fall, end of chap, xxviii), 

 " ingeniously be confessed that the ministers of the 

 Catholic Church imitated the profane model which 

 they were impotent to destroy. The most respecta- 

 ble bishops had persuaded themselves that the ig- 

 norant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the 

 superstitions of paganism if they found some resem- 

 blance, some compensation, in the bosom of Chris- 

 tianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less 

 than a century, the final conquest of the Roman Em- 

 pire, but the victors themselves were insensibly sub- 

 dued by the arts of their vanquished rivals." 



Enough has been said on a topic to which promi- 

 nence has been given because it brings into fuller 



