eir struggle with victorious Rome, the religious
influence of Druidism had caused any notable progress to be made in
Gallic manners and civilization. A general and strong, but vague and
incoherent, belief in the immortality of the soul was its noblest
characteristic. But with the religious elements, at the same time coarse
and mystical, were united two facts of importance: the Druids formed a
veritable ecclesiastical corporation, which had, throughout Gallic
society, fixed attributes, special manners and customs, an existence at
the same time distinct and national; and in the wars with Rome this
corporation became the most faithful representatives and the most
persistent defenders of Gallic independence and nationality.

The Druids were far more a clergy than Druidism was a religion; but it
was an organized and a patriotic clergy. It was especially on this
account that they exercised in Gaul an influence which was still
existent, particularly in Northwestern Gaul, at the time when
Christianity reached the Gallic provinces of the South and Centre.

The Graeco-Roman paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than
Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious
vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the State, and
was invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it had
but the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As a
religious creed, the Latin paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent,
and inclined to tolerate all religions in the State, provided only that
they, in their turn, were indifferent at any rate toward itself, and
that they did not come troubling the State, either by disobeying her
rulers or by attacking her old deities, dead and buried beneath their
own still standing altars.

Such were the two religions with which in Gaul nascent Christianity had
to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and
very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for
fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which
they lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religion
exclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed a
universal religion, free from all local and national partiality,
addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering
to all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most
significant facts in history that the religion m