352 
of so honest an historian be discredited, on the ground that he 
is a believer in Christianity, at least that objection will not 
apply to the passage I am about to cite from Lecky s History 
of Christian Morals. “ In some respects/ says that author, 
“ Christianity had already effected an improvement. . . . The 
vast schools of prostitution which had grown up undei the 
name of temples of Venus, were suppressed. . . . Under the 
influence of Christianity the effrontery of vice had in a great 
measure disappeared. The gross and extravagant indecency 
of representation of which we still have examples in the 
paintings on the walls, and the signs on many of the portals 
at Pompeii; the banquets of patricians, with their indescribable 
and revolting accompaniments ; the hideous excesses of name- 
less abomination in which some of the Homan emperois had 
indulged with so much publicity,— were no longer tolerated. 
Although sensuality was still very general, it was less obtrusive. 
The presence of a great Church, which amid much supei- 
stition and fanaticism still taught a pure morality, and enforced 
it by the strongest motives, was everywhere felt, controlling, 
strengthening, or overawing.”* ... * 
8. Such, then, was the influence of Christianity upon the 
Pa«-an civilization of ancient Rome. But the time soon came 
when, with the exception of the ever-narrowing area of the 
Byzantine Empire, that civilization was overthrown. Hordes 
of fierce barbarians, of almost every nation under heaven, ovei- 
ran Europe, and trampled under their feet the Roman patricians, 
now so enfeebled by their vices that neither tlieir civilization 
nor their wealth could save them from subjection to those who, 
in every respect save two, were their inferiors, let, if the 
barbarians in their native forests had preserved their domestic 
puritv,f their frugality and temperance, and thus the bravery 
which continence and temperance can alone keep alive, these 
virtues for the most part ceased to exist when, in the license of 
uncontrolled power, the Frank and the Lombard, the Goth, the 
Vandal, and the Hun were exposed to the corrupting influence 
of Roman luxury. The hardy self-restraint, the barbarians 1 
only virtue, soon disappeared ; the fierceness and brutality were 
retained. Therefore, the history of the centuries immediately 
* Leekv, History Christian Morals, vol. ii. p. lG.‘k I have been obliged 
to soften the language even of the English historian of these abominably 
depraved times. It i» too groat,, at leaat for oral delivery before a muted 
‘'“t Mifman, Latin Christianity, ii. p. G7 ; Tacitus, Germania. 
