who, while they hated the olden culture of Paganism, were ambitious to supply a Christian literature in prose and verse to take the place of the Classical.  There had been an awful devastation of Gaul; the barbarians of the north had been, now and again, uneasy and troublesome; but see how Julian—­even he, with the Grace of God all against him—­had chastised them!  The head of the Roman State would always be the Master of the World.

And strangely enough, this was an idea that persisted for centuries; facts with all their mordant logic were impotent to kill it.  Hardly in Dante’s time did men guess that the Roman empire and its civilization were gone.

Life, when Julian died, was still capable of being a very graceful and dignified affair,—­outwardly, at any rate.  On their great estates in Gaul, in Britain, in Italy, great and polished gentlemen still enjoyed their otium cum dignitate. The culture of the great past still maintained itself amongst them; although thought and all mental vigor were buried deep under the detritus.  In fourth century Gaul there was quite a little literary renaissance; centering, as you might expect, in the parts furthest from German invasion.  Its leading light was born in Bordeaux in the three-thirties; and was thus (to link things up a little) a younger contemporary of the Indian Samudragupta.  He was Ausonius:  teacher of rhetoric, tutor to the prince Gratian, consul, country gentleman, large land-owner, and, in a studious uninspired reflective way, a goodish poet.  Also a convert to Christianity, but unenthusiastic:—­altogether, a dignified and polished figure; such as you might find in England now, in the country squire who has held important offices in India in his time, hunts and shoots in season, manages his estates with something between amateur and professional interest, reads Horace for his pleasure, and even has a turn for writing Latin verses.  Ausonius leaves us a picture of the life of his class:  a placid, cultured life, with quite a strong ethical side to it; sterile of any deep thought or speculation; far removed from unrest.—­ Another respresentative man was his friend Symmachus at Rome:  also highly cultured and of dignified leisure; a very upright and capable gentleman widely respected for his sterling honesty; a pagan, not for any stirring of life within his heart or mind, but simply for love of the ancient Roman idea,—­sheer conservatism;—­for much the same reasons, in fact, as make the Englishman above-mentioned a staunch member of the English Church.

There were many such men about:  admirable men; but unluckily without the great constructive energies that might, under Julian’s guidance for example, have saved the empire.  But the empire!  In that crisis,—­in that narrow pass in time!  It is not excellent gentlemen that can do such near-thaumaturgic business; but only disciples; for the proposition is, as I understand it, to link this world with the God-world, and hold fast through