For three
causes. The barbarians shattered the Roman Empire to its foundations.
When Alaric entered Rome in 410 A. D., ghastly was the impression made
on the contemporaries; the Roman world shuddered in a titanic spasm
(Lindner). The land was a garden of Eden before them, behind a howling
wilderness, as is so graphically told in Gibbon's great history. Many of
the most important centres of learning were destroyed, and for centuries
Minerva and Apollo forsook the haunts of men. The other equally
important cause was the change wrought by Christianity. The brotherhood
of man, the care of the body, the gospel of practical virtues formed the
essence of the teaching of the Founder--in these the Kingdom of Heaven
was to be sought; in these lay salvation. But the world was very evil,
all thought that the times were waxing late, and into men's minds
entered as never before a conviction of the importance of the four
last things--death, judgment, heaven and hell. One obstacle alone stood
between man and his redemption, the vile body, "this muddy vesture of
decay," that so grossly wrapped his soul. To find methods of bringing it
into subjection was the task of the Christian Church for centuries. In
the Vatican Gallery of Inscriptions is a stone slab with the single word
"Stercoriae," and below, the Christian symbol. It might serve as a motto
for the Middle Ages, during which, to quote St. Paul, all things were
"counted dung but to win Christ." In this attitude of mind the wisdom
of the Greeks was not simply foolishness, but a stumbling-block in the
path. Knowledge other than that which made a man "wise unto salvation"
was useless. All that was necessary was contained in the Bible or taught
by the Church. This simple creed brought consolation to thousands and
illumined the lives of some of the noblest of men. But, "in seeking a
heavenly home man lost his bearings upon earth." Let me commend for your
reading Taylor's "Mediaeval Mind."(1) I cannot judge of its scholarship,
which I am told by scholars is ripe and good, but I can judge of its
usefulness for anyone who wishes to know the story of the mind of man
in Europe at this period. Into the content of mediaeval thought only
a mystic can enter with full sympathy. It was a needful change in the
evolution of the race. Christianity brought new ideals and new motives
into the lives of men. The world's desire was changed, a desire for the
Kingdom of Heaven, in the search for which the lust