all. And then, behold, it came out that the
bones did not work miracles, and that possibly they were not saints'
bones at all; and then the storm came: and the lie, as all lies do,
punished itself. The salt had lost its savour. The Teutonic intellect
appealed from its old masters to God, and to God's universe of facts, and
emancipated itself once and for all. They who had been the light of
Europe, became its darkness; they who had been first, became last; a
warning to mankind until the end of time, that on Truth and Virtue
depends the only abiding strength.

LECTURE XII--THE STRATEGY OF PROVIDENCE

I no not know whether any of you know much of the theory of war. I know
very little myself. But something of it one is bound to know, as
Professor of History. For, unfortunately, a large portion of the history
of mankind is the history of war; and the historian, as a man who wants
to know how things were done--as distinct from the philosopher, the man
who wants to know how things ought to have been done--ought to know a
little of the first of human arts--the art of killing. What little I
know thereof I shall employ to-day, in explaining to you the invasion of
the Teutons, from a so-called mechanical point of view. I wish to shew
you how it was possible for so small and uncivilized a people to conquer
one so vast and so civilized; and what circumstances (which you may
attribute to what cause you will: but I to God) enabled our race to
conquer in the most vast and important campaign the world has ever seen.

I call it a campaign rather than a war. Though it lasted 200 years and
more, it seems to me (it will, I think, seem to you) if you look at the
maps, as but one campaign: I had almost said, one battle. There is but
one problem to be solved; and therefore the operations of our race take a
sort of unity. The question is, how to take Rome, and keep it, by
destroying the Roman Empire.

Let us consider the two combatants--their numbers, and their position.

One glance at the map will shew you which are the most numerous. When
you cast your eye over the vastness of the Roman Empire from east to
west--Italy, Switzerland, half Austria, Turkey and Greece, Asia Minor,
Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, France, Britain--and then compare it
with the narrow German strip which reaches from the mouth of the Danube
to the mouth of the Rhine, the disparity of area is enormous; ten times
as great at least; perhaps mor