benighted superstitions of the Papacy by the glorious light of
Reformation. Finally, you have the broadly philosophical history,
which proves to you that there is no evidence whatever of any
overruling Providence in human affairs; that all virtuous actions have
selfish motives; and that a scientific selfishness, with proper
telegraphic communications, and perfect knowledge of all the species
of Bacteria, will entirely secure the future well-being of the upper
classes of society, and the dutiful resignation of those beneath them.

Meantime, the two ignored powers--the Providence of Heaven, and the
virtue of men--have ruled, and rule, the world, not invisibly; and
they are the only powers of which history has ever to tell any
profitable truth. Under all sorrow, there is the force of virtue; over
all ruin, the restoring charity of God. To these alone we have to
look; in these alone we may understand the past, and predict the
future, destiny of the ages.

I return to the story of Clovis, king now of all central France. Fix
the year 500 in your minds as the approximate date of his baptism at
Rheims, and of St. Remy's sermon to him, telling him of the sufferings
and passion of Christ, till Clovis sprang from his throne, grasping
his spear, and crying, "Had I been there with my brave Franks, I would
have avenged His wrongs."

"There is little doubt," proceeds the cockney historian, "that the
conversion of Clovis was as much a matter of policy as of faith." But
the cockney historian had better limit his remarks on the characters
and faiths of men to those of the curates who have recently taken
orders in his fashionable neighbourhood, or the bishops who have
lately preached to the population of its manufacturing suburbs.
Frankish kings were made of other clay.

The Christianity of Clovis does not indeed produce any fruits of the
kind usually looked for in a modern convert. We do not hear of his
repenting ever so little of any of his sins, nor resolving to lead a new
life in any the smallest particular. He had not been impressed with
convictions of sin at the battle of Tolbiac; nor, in asking for the help
of the God of Clotilde, had he felt or professed the remotest intention
of changing his character, or abandoning his projects. What he was,
before he believed in his queen's God, he only more intensely afterwards
became, in the confidence of that before unknown God's supernatural
help. His natural gratitude to the Deliveri