one long scene of self-denial and danger. The whole vein
of remark is so completely out of date, that it is not worth dwelling
on, except very summarily.

The second cause is "the doctrine of a future life, improved by every
additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that
important truth." Again we have an effect treated as a cause. "The
ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present
existence, and by a just confidence of immortality." Very true; but
the fact of their being so animated was what wanted explaining. Gibbon
says it "was no wonder that so advantageous an offer" as that of
immortality was accepted. Yet he had just before told us that the
ablest orators at the bar and in the senate of Rome, could expose
this offer of immortality to ridicule without fear of giving offence.
Whence arose, then, the sudden blaze of conviction with which the
Christians embraced it?

The third cause is the miraculous powers _ascribed_ to the primitive
Church. Gibbon apparently had not the courage to admit that he agreed
with his friend Hume in rejecting miracles altogether. He conceals his
drift in a cloud of words, suggesting indirectly with innuendo and
sneer his real opinion. But this does not account for the stress he
lays on the _ascription_ of miracles. He seems to think that the claim
of supernatural gifts somehow had the same efficacy as the gifts
themselves would have had, if they had existed.

The fourth cause is the virtues of the primitive Christians. The
paragraphs upon it, Dean Milman considers the most uncandid in all the
history, and they certainly do Gibbon no credit. With a strange
ignorance of the human heart, he attributes the austere morals of the
early Christians to their care for their reputation. The ascetic
temper, one of the most widely manifested in history, was beyond his
comprehension.

The fifth cause was the union and discipline of the Christian
republic. For the last time the effect figures as the cause. Union and
discipline we know are powerful, but we know also that they are the
result of deep antecedent forces, and that prudence and policy alone
never produced them.

It can surprise no one that Gibbon has treated the early Church in a
way which is highly unsatisfactory if judged by a modern standard. Not
only is it a period which criticism has gone over again and again with
a microscope, but the standpoint from which such periods are observed
has materi