are not
force the doors,--they dare not enter. Why? Because the church had
become a sacred place. It was consecrated to the worship of Jehovah. The
soldiers were afraid of the wrath of God more than of the wrath of
Faustina or Valentinian. What do you see in this fact? You see how
religious ideas had permeated the minds even of soldiers. They were not
strong enough or brave enough to fight the ideas of their age. Why did
not the troops of Louis XVI. defend the Bastille? They were strong
enough; its cannon could have demolished the whole Faubourg St. Antoine.
Alas! the soldiers who defended that fortress had caught the ideas of
the people. They fraternized with them, rather than with the Government;
they were afraid of opposing the ideas which shook France to its centre.
So the soldiers of the imperial government at Milan, converted to the
ideas of Christianity, or sympathizing with them, or afraid of them,
dared not assail the church to which Ambrose fled for refuge. Behold in
this fact the majestic power of ideas when they reach the people.

But if the soldiers dared not attack Ambrose and his followers in a
consecrated place, they might starve him out, or frighten him into a
surrender. At this point appears the intrepidity of the Christian hero.
Day after day, and night after night, the bishop maintained his post.
The time was spent in religious exercises. The people listened to
exhortation; they prayed; they sang psalms. Then was instituted, amid
that long-protracted religious meeting that beautiful antiphonal chant
of Ambrose, which afterwards, modified and simplified by Pope Gregory,
became the great attraction of religious worship in all the cathedrals
and abbeys and churches of Europe for more than one thousand years. It
was true congregational singing, in which all took part; simple and
religious as the songs of Methodists, both to drive away fear and ennui,
and fortify the soul by inspiring melodies,--not artistic music borrowed
from the opera and oratorio, and sung by four people, in a distant loft,
for the amusement of the rich pew-holders of a fashionable congregation,
and calculated to make it forget the truths which the preacher has
declared; but more like the hymns and anthems of the son of Jesse, when
sung by the whole synagogue, making the vaulted roof and lofty pillars
of the Medieval church re-echo the paeans of the transported
worshippers.

At last there were signs of rebellion among the soldiers. T