rse we live
to-day by Roman law.

This law the Teutons were slowly absorbing. They accepted the general
structure of the world into which they had thrust themselves; they
continued its style of building and many of its rougher arts; they even
adopted its language, though in such confused and awkward fashion that
Italy, France, and Spain grew each to have a dialect of its own. And
most important of all, they accepted the religion, the Christian
religion of Rome. Missionaries venture forth again. Augustine preaches
in England.[8] Boniface penetrates the German wilds.

It must not be supposed that the moment a Teuton accepted baptism he
became filled with a pure Christian spirit of meekness and of love. On
the contrary, he probably remained much the same drunken, roistering
heathen as before. But he was brought in contact with noble examples in
the lives of some of the Christian bishops around him; great truths
began to touch his mobile nature; he was impressed, softened; he began
to think and feel.

Given a couple of centuries of this, we really begin to see some very
encouraging results. We realize that for once we are being allowed to
study a civilization in its earlier stages, to be present almost at its
birth, to watch the methods of the Master-builder in the making of a
race. Gazing at similar developments in the days of Egypt and Babylon,
we guessed vaguely that they must have been of slowest growth. Here at
last one takes place under our eyes, and it does not need so many ages
after all. There is no study more fascinating than to trace the slow
changes stamping themselves ineradicably upon the Teutonic mind and soul
during these misty far-off centuries of turmoil.

On the whole, of course, the sixth, seventh, and even the eighth
centuries form a period of strife. The Teutons had spent too many ages
warring against one another in petty strife to abandon the pleasure in a
single generation. Men fought because they liked fighting, much as they
play football to-day. Then, too, there came another great outburst of
Semite religious enthusiasm. Mahomet[9] started the Arabs on their
remarkable career of conquest.

THE MAHOMETAN OUTBURST

Mahomet himself died (632) before he had fully established his influence
even over Arabia: his successors had practically to reconquer it. Yet
within five years of his death the Arabs had mastered Syria.[10] They
spread like some sudden, unexpected, immeasurable whirlwind. Ancient