g aloft the
shapeless image of Thor, perhaps, or of Woden, was conducted in solemn
procession through the streets of the camp; and the rebels, who refused
to worship the god of their fathers, were immediately burnt, with their
tents and families. The character of Ulphilas recommended him to the
esteem of the Eastern court, where he twice appeared as the minister of
peace; he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths, who implored
the protection of Valens; and the name of _Moses_ was applied to this
spiritual guide, who conducted his people through the deep waters of the
Danube to the Land of Promise. The devout shepherds, who were attached
to his person, and tractable to his voice, acquiesced in their
settlement, at the foot of the Maesian mountains, in a country of
woodlands and pastures, which supported their flocks and herds, and
enabled them to purchase the corn and wine of the more plentiful
provinces. These harmless Barbarians multiplied in obscure peace and the
profession of Christianity.

Their fiercer brethren, the formidable Visigoths, universally adopted
the religion of the Romans, with whom they maintained a perpetual
intercourse, of war, of friendship, or of conquest. In their long and
victorious march from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean, they converted
their allies; they educated the rising generation; and the devotion
which reigned in the camp of Alaric, or the court of Thoulouse, might
edify or disgrace the palaces of Rome and Constantinople. During the
same period, Christianity was embraced by almost all the Barbarians,
who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the Western empire; the
Burgundians in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the
Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries, that
raised Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still
persevered in the errors of Paganism; but the Franks obtained the
monarchy of Gaul by their submission to the example of Clovis; and
the Saxon conquerors of Britain were reclaimed from their savage
superstition by the missionaries of Rome. These Barbarian proselytes
displayed an ardent and successful zeal in the propagation of the faith.
The Merovingian kings, and their successors, Charlemagne and the Othos,
extended, by their laws and victories, the dominion of the cross.
England produced the apostle of Germany; and the evangelic light was
gradually diffused from the neighborhood of the Rhine, to the nations of