ars.

II. The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious and
decisive victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens of the Roman
empire; and over the warlike Barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who
subverted the empire, and embraced the religion, of the Romans. The
Goths were the foremost of these savage proselytes; and the nation was
indebted for its conversion to a countryman, or, at least, to a subject,
worthy to be ranked among the inventors of useful arts, who have
deserved the remembrance and gratitude of posterity. A great number of
Roman provincials had been led away into captivity by the Gothic bands,
who ravaged Asia in the time of Gallienus; and of these captives, many
were Christians, and several belonged to the ecclesiastical order. Those
involuntary missionaries, dispersed as slaves in the villages of Dacia,
successively labored for the salvation of their masters. The seeds which
they planted, of the evangelic doctrine, were gradually propagated; and
before the end of a century, the pious work was achieved by the labors
of Ulphilas, whose ancestors had been transported beyond the Danube from
a small town of Cappadocia.

Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, acquired their love
and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal; and they
received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of truth and virtue
which he preached and practised. He executed the arduous task of
translating the Scriptures into their native tongue, a dialect of the
German or Teutonic language; but he prudently suppressed the four books
of Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce and sanguinary
spirit of the Barbarians. The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and
shepherds, so ill qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was
improved and modulated by his genius: and Ulphilas, before he could
frame his version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four
letters; four of which he invented, to express the peculiar sounds
that were unknown to the Greek and Latin pronunciation. But the
prosperous state of the Gothic church was soon afflicted by war and
intestine discord, and the chieftains were divided by religion as
well as by interest. Fritigern, the friend of the Romans, became the
proselyte of Ulphilas; while the haughty soul of Athanaric disdained the
yoke of the empire and of the gospel The faith of the new converts was
tried by the persecution which he excited. A wagon, bearin