tetia_. The residence soon grew into the Palace of the
Caesars; and then bridges spanned the river, and roads and aqueducts
and faubourgs sprang into existence across the Seine, and _Lutetia_ was
swallowed up in Paris--so named for a Gallic tribe, the _Parisii_,
which had once encamped there. Standing within the Palais de Justice
on this island to-day, one is in direct touch with Rome when she was
mistress of the world. The feet of the Caesars have pressed those
stones. Those vaulted ceilings have looked down upon Julian the
Apostate; he who upon his throne in the far East sighed for
"Lutetia"--his "dear Lutetia."

At Passy and Montmartre, and where stands the Palais Royal, rich Romans
had their suburban homes, and Roman legions were encamped where are now
the Palais de Luxembourg and the Sorbonne. And with a mingling of
Keltic and Latin, there had commenced a new form of human speech.

Not Paris alone, but all of Gaul felt the awakening touch of a great
civilization, and with improved ideals in living there came another
great advance. The human sacrifices and abhorrent practices of the
Druidical faith were abandoned, and Jupiter and Minerva and the gods of
Parnassus supplanted the grim deities of a more ancient mythology. But
while Rome was a powerful teacher, she was a cruel mistress--and
shackles were galling to these free barbarians. In the midst of
universal misery there came tidings of something better than the gods
of Parnassus, when in A.D. 160 Irenaeus came to Lyons and there
established the first Church of Christ; and here it was that Marcus
Aurelius ordered the persecution which was intended to stamp out the
new and fanatical heresy.

CHAPTER III.

While the Star of Empire was thus moving toward the West, another and
brighter star had arisen in the East. So accustomed are we to the
story, that we lose all sense of wonder at its recital.

Julius Caesar's brief triumph was over, Marc Antony had recited his
virtues over his bier, Rome had wept, and then forgotten him in the
absorbing splendors of his nephew Augustus. In an obscure village of
an obscure country in Asia Minor the young wife of a peasant finds
shelter in a stable, and gives birth to a son, who is cradled in the
straw of a manger from which the cattle are feeding.

Can the mind conceive of human circumstances more lowly? The child
grew to manhood, and in his thirty-three years of life was never lifted
above the obscure sphere