cessively labored for
the salvation of their masters. The seeds which they planted, of the
evangelic doctrine, were gradually propagated; and before the end of a
century, the pious work was achieved by the labors of Ulphilas, whose
ancestors had been transported beyond the Danube from a small town of
Cappadocia.

Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, [74] acquired their love
and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal; and they
received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of truth and virtue
which he preached and practised. He executed the arduous task of
translating the Scriptures into their native tongue, a dialect of the
German or Teutonic language; but he prudently suppressed the four books
of Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce and sanguinary
spirit of the Barbarians. The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and
shepherds, so ill qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was
improved and modulated by his genius: and Ulphilas, before he could
frame his version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four
letters; [741] four of which he invented, to express the peculiar sounds
that were unknown to the Greek and Latin pronunciation. [75] But the
prosperous state of the Gothic church was soon afflicted by war and
intestine discord, and the chieftains were divided by religion as
well as by interest. Fritigern, the friend of the Romans, became the
proselyte of Ulphilas; while the haughty soul of Athanaric disdained the
yoke of the empire and of the gospel The faith of the new converts was
tried by the persecution which he excited. A wagon, bearing 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. [76] 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 her