acies of
different sects, and estimated the importance of contending schisms;
gaining this collection of heterogeneous facts under the combined
disadvantages of poverty, solitude, and age; dependent for support on
the poorest public charities, and for shelter on the meanest public
asylums. Every conclusion that he drew from all he learned partook of
the sanguine character of the fatal self-deception which had embittered
his whole life. He believed that the dissensions which he saw raging
in the Church would speedily effect the destruction of Christianity
itself; that, when such a period should arrive, the public mind would
require but the guidance of some superior intellect to return to its
old religious predilections; and that to lay the foundation for
effecting in such a manner the desired revolution, it was necessary for
him--impossible though it might seem in his present degraded
condition--to gain access to the disaffected nobles of Rome, and
discover the secret of acquiring such an influence over them as would
enable him to infect them with his enthusiasm, and fire them with his
determination. Greater difficulties even than these had been overcome
by other men. Solitary individuals had, ere this, originated
revolutions. The gods would favour him; his own cunning would protect
him. Yet a little more patience, a little more determination, and he
might still, after all his misfortunes, be assured of success.

It was about this period that he first heard, while pursuing his
investigations, of an obscure man who had suddenly arisen to undertake
a reformation in the Christian Church, whose declared aim was to rescue
the new worship from that very degeneracy on the fatal progress of
which rested all his hopes of triumph. It was reported that this man
had been for some time devoted to his reforming labours, but that the
difficulties attendant on the task that he had appointed for himself
had hitherto prevented him from attaining all the notoriety essential
to the satisfactory prosecution of his plans. On hearing this rumour,
Ulpius immediately joined the few who attended the new orator's
discourses, and there heard enough to convince him that he listened to
the most determined zealot for Christianity in the city of Rome. To
gain this man's confidence, to frustrate every effort that he might
make in his new vocation, to ruin his credit with his hearers, and to
threaten his personal safety by betraying his inmost s