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A.D. conquered their country; but the Germans in 9. reality were yet unconquered. When Cæsar first led his soldiers against them, a general murmur arose, many deserted the camp, and Cæsar's victory was solely attributed to the German soothsayers having forbidden their prince to risk a battle before new moon. At a later period, a step-son of the emperor Augustus penetrated as far as the Elbe, when a part of the country lying between the Rhine and the Elbe became a Roman province, and all appeared so quiet and submissive that Quinctilius Varus attempted to introduce the Roman language and laws. This offended the Germans; they united under Herman, and, having surrounded Varus in a wood, fell upon his army, and put the greater part to the sword, 9 A.D. To this victory Germany owes her liberty, as well as the blessing that her native language is still preserved, and is spoken at this hour. This defeat occasioned such a panic at Rome, that the Emperor Augustus wished to send all the young men in the city to the Rhine, a measure he could only effect by threats of great severity, and when they arrived on the banks of the Rhine, nobody was there to meet them. The contempt of death amongst the ancient Germans, to which we have already alluded, proceeded from their belief in another and more blissful state beyond the grave, where hunting, fighting, and revelry would constitute their chief amusements. However ridiculous such an idea may appear to us, we have

several instances of a similar expectation prevailing among semi-barbarous nations. In consequence of this belief, horses, dogs, and slaves were burnt with the dead; even weapons and money were put in the grave, and on the sea-coast fragments

of ships. The ancient Germans, for the most part, honoured as a deity a superior being whom they worshipped in sacred groves; this Being they at one time called "Wodan," at another "Father of all"; till gradually, in the course of the following centuries, the sanctifying influence of the Christian religion shed a light over Germany, instructing its people to offer up their prayers to one God, the one only Almighty and Eternal Father.

A. D.

1

300.

CHAP. XXXIII.

THE DIFFUSION OF THE GOSPEL.

1.

OUR Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who vouch- A. D. safed to take human form at the town of Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, was permitted by the mercy of God, not only to be an atonement for man's sins, but, also, to be the founder of the one and only true religion. Our Saviour saw that the Jews limited their religious observances to mere formal ceremonies, regardless of the purity

A. D. and sanctity of the heart. He perceived also that 1-33. their teachers, the Scribes and Pharisees, 'were

pretenders and hypocrites; and this was shocking to the holiness and truth of his heavenly nature. We are all familiar with the sacred precepts and parables by which our Lord endeavoured to lead them from forms and ceremonial observances to the true religion of the heart, and implicit faith in God, evidenced in love to all men, and strict rectitude of daily conduct. We must refer to the Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles for the history of the most faithful and devoted of his followers. It is well known that our Lord's ministry offended the Jews, especially the sect of Pharisees, who charged him before the Roman government with instigating the people to sedition, and with aspiring to be the king of the Jews. We need not relate the cruel enmity with which the Jews, disappointed in their ambitious expectations of a temporal prince, who would throw off the Roman yoke, urged their false accusations; nor how, in exact fulfilment of prophecy, our Lord was condemned to suffer the agonising death of the cross. The good seed which he had sown was not allowed to perish. By the grace of God his Apostles were enabled to disseminate his doctrines throughout the whole of Judea, and even as far as Greece and Rome. Their congregations at first were small, for Christians were regarded as Jews; and in Rome the Jews were always treated with great severity in consequence of the resistance

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337.

they so often made to the Roman government. A. D. It is true that Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70 A.D.; but this did not put an end to revolts, in which the severity due to the Jews too often fell upon the Christians. Many were put to death because they refused to deny the truth of those comfortable doctrines to which they fondly clung as the conviction of their minds and the persuasion of their souls. By their steady endurance of death they obtained the name of Martyrs; and when heathens beheld in them the courage of their own brave warriors, they were sometimes persuaded to be baptized into the faith. In the year 300 A.D. there were many Christian congregations; yet Christianity was not formally recognised. At this period the Emperor Constantine openly professed to be a Christian, received the sacrament of baptism, and ordered the demolition of heathen temples, A.D. 331. This was the Emperor who built Constantinople, and decided on making it the imperial residence in preference to Rome. In consequence of this profession of Constantine, Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. Many churches were built, and their services conducted with great splendour, while the old worship of the heathen deities gradually lost most of its votaries; though some impute to the Christians, to whom Christ had given the one great law "love one another," and even "your enemies," that they now displayed great severity against those of a different religion, by

A. D. persecuting the heathens and burning heretics. 350. Soon afterwards, there arose between the Patri

archs of Rome and Constantinople a dispute about precedence; each was ambitious of being acknowledged as chief Patriarch. The reaction caused by this dispute about superiority made many imagine it to be meritorious to withdraw altogether from the world and its honours; and at last the monastic system arose, in consequence of the belief that it would be meritorious to separate from the walks of men, and that in tranquillity and seclusion, with prayer, vigils, fasting, and flagellation, they could the better lead a godly life. Many monasteries were erected, which in that early time had a very beneficial and civilising effect upon the unpolished people of the western empire.

200.

CHAP. XXXIV.

DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

A. D. THE great Roman Empire comprehended Por1- tugal, Spain, France as far as the Rhine, Holland, England with the south of Scotland, Switzerland, the southern parts of Germany as far as the Danube, Italy with its islands, Hungary as far as

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