s together in a network of splendid
highways.

There were more than three centuries of peace. Agriculture, commerce,
and industries came into existence. "Wealth accumulated," but the
Briton "decayed" beneath the weight of a splendid system, which had not
benefited, but had simply crushed out of him his original vigor.
Together with Roman villas, and vice, and luxury, had also come
Christianity. But the Briton, if he had learned to pray, had forgotten
how to fight,--and how to govern; and now the Roman Empire was
perishing. She needed all her legions to keep Alaric and his Goths out
of Rome.

In 410 A.D. the fair cities and roads were deserted. The tramp of
Roman soldiers was heard no more in the land, and the {15} enfeebled
native race were left helpless and alone to fight their battles with
the Picts and Scots;--that fierce Briton offshoot which had for
centuries dwelt in the fastnesses of the Highlands, and which swarmed
down upon them like vultures as soon as their protectors were gone.

In 446 A.D. the unhappy Britons invited their fate. Like their
cousins, the Gauls, they invited the Teutons from across the sea to
come to their rescue, and with result far more disastrous.

When the Frank became the champion and conqueror of Gaul, he had for
centuries been in conflict or in contact with Rome, and had learned
much of the old Southern civilizations, and to some extent adopted
their ideals. Not so the Angles and Saxons, who came pouring into
Britain from Schleswig-Holstein. They were uncontaminated pagans. In
scorn of Roman luxury, they set the torch to the villas, and temples
and baths. They came, exterminating, not assimilating. The more
complaisant Frank had taken Romanized, Latinized Gaul just as he found
her, and had even speedily {16} adopted her religion. It was for Gaul
a change of rulers, but not of civilization.

But the Angles and Saxons were Teutons of a different sort. They
brought across the sea in those "keels" their religion, their manners,
habits, nature, and speech; and they brought them for use (just as the
Englishman to-day carries with him a little England wherever he goes).
Their religion, habits, and manners they stamped upon the helpless
Britons. In spite of King Arthur, and his knights, and his sword
"Excalibur," they swiftly paganized the land which had been for three
centuries Christianized; and their nature and speech were so ground
into the land of their adoption that th