g Grendels, a Roman lawyer, or a logothete from
Ravenna; possessed, too, of boundless supernatural power;--Would the
bishop be so good as to help him in his dispute with the Count Boso,
about their respective marches in such and such a forest? If the bishop
could only settle that without more fighting, of course he should have
his reward. He would confirm to the saint and his burg all the rights
granted by Constantine the Kaiser; and give him moreover all the meadow
land in such and such a place, with the mills and fisheries, on service
of a dish of trout from the bishop and his successors, whenever he came
that way: for the trout there were exceeding good, that he knew. And so
a bargain would be struck, and one of those curious compromises between
the spiritual and temporal authorities take root, of which one may read
at length in the pages of M. Guizot, or Sir James Stephen.

And after a few years, most probably, the king would express a wish to be
baptized, at the instance of his queen who had been won over by the
bishop, and had gone down into the font some years before; and he would
bid his riders be baptized also; and they would obey, seeing that it
could do them no harm, and might do them some good; and they would agree
to live more or less according to the laws of God and common humanity;
and so one more Christian state would be formed; one more living stone
(as it was phrased in those days) built into the great temple of God
which was called Christendom.

So the work was done. Can we devise any better method of doing it? If
not, let us be content that it was done somehow, and believe that wisdom
is justified of all her children.

We may object to the fact, that the dom-church and its organization grew
up (as was the case in the vast majority of instances) round the body of
a saint or martyr; we may smile at the notion of an invisible owner and
protector of the soil: but we must not overlook the broad fact, that
without that prestige the barbarians would never have been awed into
humanity; without that prestige the place would have been swept off the
face of the earth, till not one stone stood on another: and he who does
not see what a disaster for humanity that would have been, must be
ignorant that the civilization of Europe is the child of the towns; and
also that our Teutonic forefathers were by profession destroyers of
towns, and settlers apart from each other on country freeholds. Lonely
barbarism