“When Christianity itself was in such need of reform,” says Lord, “when Christians could scarcely be distinguished from pagans in love of display, and in egotistical ends, how could it reform the world?  When it was a pageant, a ritualism, an arm of the state, a vain philosophy, a superstition, a formula, how could it save, if ever so dominant?  The corruptions of the church in the fourth century are as well authenticated as the purity and moral elevation of Christians in the second century.”  Even in the early days of Christianity the ruin of Rome was impending, but, at that time, the adherents of the Christian religion were few and poor.  They did not possess enough power and influence to save the state.  When monasticism came to Rome, the lords of the church were getting ready to sit upon the thrones of princes, but the dazzling victory of the church was not a spiritual conquest of sin, so the last ray of hope for the Empire was extinguished.  Her fall was inevitable.

With this outlined picture in mind, fancy Athanasius and his monks at Rome.  These men despise luxury and contemn riches.  They have come to make Rome ring with the old war cries,—­although they wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places.  Terror and despair are on every side, but they are not afraid.  They know what it means to face the demons of the desert, to lie down at night with wild beasts for companions.  They have not yielded to the depravity of the human heart and the temptations of a licentious age.  They have conquered sinful appetites by self-abnegation and fasting.  They come to a distracted society with a message of peace—­a peace won by courageous self-sacrifice.  They call men to save their perishing souls by surrendering their wills to God and enlisting in a campaign against the powers of darkness.  They appeal to the ancient spirit of courage and love of hardship.  They arouse the dormant moral energies of the profligate nobles, proud of the past and sick of the present.  The story of Anthony admonished Rome that a life of sensuous gratification was inglorious, unworthy of the true Roman, and that the flesh could be mastered by heroic endeavor.

Women, who spent their hours in frivolous amusements, welcomed with gratitude the discovery that they could be happy without degradation, and joyfully responded to the call of righteousness.  “Despising themselves,” says Kingsley, “despising their husbands to whom they had been wedded in loveless wedlock, they too fled from a world which had sated and sickened them.”

Woman’s natural craving for lofty friendships and pure aspirations found satisfaction in the monastic ideal.  She fled from the incessant broils of a corrupt court, from the courtesans that usurped the place of the wife, from the insolence and selfishness of men who scorned even the appearance of virtue and did not hesitate to degrade even their wives and sisters.  She would disprove the biting sarcasm of Juvenal,—­