But if the soldiers dared not attack Ambrose and his followers in a consecrated place, they might starve him out, or frighten him into a surrender.  At this point appears the intrepidity of the Christian hero.  Day after day, and night after night, the bishop maintained his post.  The time was spent in religious exercises.  The people listened to exhortation; they prayed; they sang psalms.  Then was instituted, amid that long-protracted religious meeting that beautiful antiphonal chant of Ambrose, which afterwards, modified and simplified by Pope Gregory, became the great attraction of religious worship in all the cathedrals and abbeys and churches of Europe for more than one thousand years.  It was true congregational singing, in which all took part; simple and religious as the songs of Methodists, both to drive away fear and ennui, and fortify the soul by inspiring melodies,—­not artistic music borrowed from the opera and oratorio, and sung by four people, in a distant loft, for the amusement of the rich pew-holders of a fashionable congregation, and calculated to make it forget the truths which the preacher has declared; but more like the hymns and anthems of the son of Jesse, when sung by the whole synagogue, making the vaulted roof and lofty pillars of the Medieval church re-echo the paeans of the transported worshippers.

At last there were signs of rebellion among the soldiers.  The new spiritual power was felt, even among them.  They were tired of their work; they hated it, since Ambrose was the representative of ideas that claimed obedience no less than the temporal powers.  The spiritual and temporal powers were, in fact, arrayed against each other,—­an unarmed clergy, declaring principles, against an armed soldiery with swords and lances.  What an unequal fight!  Why, the very weapons of the soldier are in defence of ideas!  The soldier himself is very strong in defence of universally recognized principles, like law and government, whose servant he is.  In the case of Ambrose, it was the supposed law of God against the laws of man.  What soldier dares to fight against Omnipotence, if he believes at all in the God to whom he is as personally responsible as he is to a ruler?

Ambrose thus remained the victor.  The empress was defeated.  But she was a woman, and had persistency; she had no intention of succumbing to a priest, and that priest her subject.  With subtle dexterity she would change the mode of attack, not relinquish the fight.  She sought to compromise.  She promised to molest Ambrose no more if he would allow one church for the Arians.  If the powerful metropolitan would concede that, he might return to his palace in safety; she would withdraw the soldiers.  But this he refused.  Not one church, declared he, should the detractors of our Lord possess in the city over which he presided as bishop.  The Government might take his revenues, might take his life; but he would be true to his cause.  With his last breath he would defend the Church, and the doctrines on which it rested.