ethnical element had never given it up, but was dying out with it, a
relic of the population of the city still adhering to the ancient faith.
Among this were not wanting many of the aristocratic families and
philosophers, who imputed the disaster to the public apostasy, and in
their shame and suffering loudly proclaimed that the nation was justly
punished for its abandonment of the gods of its forefathers, the gods
who had given victory and empire. It became necessary for the Church to
meet this accusation, which, while it was openly urged by thousands, was
doubtless believed to be true by silent, and timid, and panic-stricken
millions. With the intention of defending Christianity, St. Augustine,
one of the ablest of the fathers, solemnly devoted thirteen years of his
life to the composition of his great work entitled "The City of God." It
is interesting for us to remark the tone of some of these replies of the
Christians to their pagan adversaries.

[Sidenote: The Christian reply.]

"For the manifest deterioration of Roman manners, and for the impending
dissolution of the state, paganism itself is responsible. Our political
power is only of yesterday; it is in no manner concerned with the
gradual development of luxury and wickedness, which has been going on
for the last thousand years. Your ancestors made war a trade; they laid
under tribute and enslaved the adjacent nations, but were not
profusion, extravagance, dissipation, the necessary consequences of
conquest? was not Roman idleness the inevitable result of the filling of
Italy with slaves? Every hour rendered wider that bottomless gulf which
separates immense riches from abject poverty. Did not the middle class,
in which reside the virtue and strength of a nation, disappear, and
aristocratic families remain in Rome, whose estates in Syria or Spain,
Gaul or Africa, equalled, nay, even exceeded in extent and revenue
illustrious kingdoms, provinces for the annexation of which the republic
of old had decreed triumphs? Was there not in the streets a profligate
rabble living in total idleness, fed and amused at the expense of the
state? We are not answerable for the grinding oppression perpetrated on
the rural populations until they have been driven to despair, their
numbers so diminishing as to warn us that there is danger of their being
extinguished. We did not suggest to the Emperor Trajan to abandon Dacia,
and neglect that policy which fixed the boundaries of the e