But the orators who preached a new religion of regenerating forces were more cheerful.  They knew that these forces would save the world, whatever the depth of ignominy, wretchedness, and despair.  Their eloquence was never sad and hopeless, but triumphant, jubilant, overpowering.  It kindled the fires of an intense enthusiasm.  It kindled an enthusiasm not based on the conquest of the earth, but on the conquests of the soul, on the never-fading glories of immortality, on the ever-increasing power of the kingdom of Christ.  The new orators did not preach liberty, or the glories of material life, or the majesty of man, or even patriotism, but Salvation,—­the future destinies of the soul.  A new arena of eloquence was entered; a new class of orators arose, who discoursed on subjects of transcending comfort to the poor and miserable.  They made political slavery of no account in comparison with the eternal redemption and happiness promised in the future state.  The old institutions could not be saved:  perhaps the orators did not care to save them; they were not worth saving; they were rotten to the core.  But new institutions should arise upon their ruins; creation should succeed destruction; melodious birth-songs should be heard above the despairing death-songs.  There should be a new heaven and a new earth, in which should dwell righteousness; and the Prince of Peace—­ Prophet, Priest, and King—­should reign therein forever and ever.

Of the great preachers who appeared in thousands of pulpits in the fourth century,—­after Christianity was seated on the throne of the Roman world, and before it had sunk into the eclipse which barbaric spoliations and papal usurpations, and general ignorance, madness, and violence produced,—­there was one at Antioch (the seat of the old Greco-Asiatic civilization, alike refined, voluptuous, and intellectual) who was making a mighty stir and creating a mighty fame.  This was Chrysostom, whose name has been a synonym of eloquence for more than fifteen hundred years.  His father, named Secundus, was a man of high military rank; his mother, Anthusa, was a woman of rare Christian graces,—­as endeared to the Church as Monica, the sainted mother of Augustine; or Nonna, the mother of Gregory Nazianzen.  And it is a pleasing fact to record, that most of the great Fathers received the first impulse to their memorable careers from the influence of pious mothers; thereby showing the true destiny and glory of women, as the guardians and instructors of their children, more eager for their salvation than ambitious of worldly distinction.  Buried in the blessed sanctities and certitudes of home,—­if this can be called a burial,—­those Christian women could forego the dangerous fascination of society and the vanity of being enrolled among its leaders.  Anthusa so fortified the faith of her yet unconverted son by her wise and affectionate counsels, that she did not fear to intrust him to the teachings of Libanius, the Pagan rhetorician, deeming