ds of the Gothic conquerors; but the Gothic or Burgundian or
Frankish possessor of innumerable acres, once tilled by peaceful
citizens, remained an allodial proprietor. Even he had no protection and
no safety; for any new excursion of less fortunate barbarians would
desolate his possessions and decimate his laborers. The small proprietor
was especially subject to pillage and murder.

In the universal despair from this reign of anarchy and lawlessness,
when there was no security to property and no redress of evils, the
allodialist parted with his lands to some powerful chieftain, and
obtained promise of protection. He even resigned the privilege of
freedom to save his wretched life. He became a serf,--a semi-bondman,
chained to the soil, but protected from outrage. Nothing but
inconceivable miseries, which have not been painted by historians, can
account for the almost simultaneous change in the ownership of land in
all European countries. We can conceive of nothing but blank despair
among the people who attempted to cultivate land. And there must have
been the grossest ignorance and the lowest degradation when men were
willing to submit to the curtailment of personal freedom and the loss of
their lands, in order to find protectors.

Thus Feudalism arose in the ninth and tenth centuries from the absolute
wreck of property and hopes. It was virtually the surrender of land for
the promise of protection. It was the great necessity of that anarchical
age. Like all institutions, it grew out of the needs of the times. Yet
its universal acceptance seems to prove that the change was beneficial.
Feudalism, especially in its early ages, is not to be judged by the
institutions of our times, any more than is the enormous growth of
spiritual power which took place when this social and political
revolution was going on. Wars and devastations and untold calamities and
brutal forces were the natural sequence of barbaric invasions, and of
the progressive fall of the old civilization, continued from generation
to generation for a period of two or three hundred years, with scarcely
any interruption. You get no relief from such a dispensation of Divine
Providence, unless you can solve the question why the Roman Empire was
permitted to be swept away. If it must be destroyed, from the prevalence
of the same vices which have uniformly undermined all empires,--utter
and unspeakable rottenness and depravity,--in spite of Christianity,
whether n