nd commanded, both in peace and war, the important straits
which connect the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. The foundation of
Constantinople more essentially contributed to the preservation of the
East, than to the ruin of the West.

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we
may hear without surprise or scandal, that the introduction or at least
the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall
of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines
of patience and pusillanimity: the active virtues of society were
discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the
cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated
to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay
was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could
only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. [511] Faith, zeal,
curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled
the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were
distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody,
and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from
camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of
tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their
country. Yet party spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle
of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred
pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful
and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies, and perpetual
correspondence, maintained the communion of distant churches; and the
benevolent temper of the gospel was strengthened, though confined, by
the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the
monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if
superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would
have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the
standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed, which
indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but
the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its
beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the
North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion
of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall,
and