few what we should call fine churches, but there was one at Rome
which was justly celebrated, built by Theodosius, and called St. Paul's.
It is now outside the walls of the modern city. The nave is divided into
five aisles, and the main one, opening into the apsis, is spanned by a
lofty arch supported by two colossal columns. The apsis is eighty feet
in breadth. All parts of the church--one of the largest of Rome--are
decorated with mosaics. It has two small transepts at the extremity of
the nave, on each side of the apsis. The four rows of magnificent
columns, supporting semicircular arches, are Corinthian. In this church
the Greek and Roman architecture predominates. The essential form of the
church is like a Pagan basilica. We see convenience, but neither
splendor nor poetry. Moreover it is cheerful. It has an altar and an
apsis, but it is adapted to preaching rather than to singing. The
public dangers produce oratory, not chants. The voice of the preacher
penetrates the minds of the people, as did that of Savonarola at
Florence announcing the invasion of Italy by the French,--days of fear
and anxiety, reminding us also of Chrysostom at Antioch, when in his
spacious basilican church he roused the people to penitence, to avert
the ire of Theodosius.

The first transition from the basilica to the Gothic church is called
the _Romanesque_, and was made after the fall of the Empire, when the
barbarians had erected new kingdoms on its ruins; when literature and
art were indeed crushed, yet when universal desolation was succeeded by
new forms of government and new habits of life; when the clergy had
become an enormous power, greatly enriched by the contributions of
Christian princes. This transition retained the traditions of the fallen
Empire, and yet was adapted to a semi-civilized people, nominally
converted to Christianity. It arose after the fall of the Merovingians,
when Charlemagne was seeking to restore the glory of the Western Empire.
Paganism had been suppressed by law; even heresies were extinguished in
the West. Kings and people were alike orthodox, and bowed to the
domination of the Church. Abbeys and convents were founded everywhere
and richly endowed. The different States and kingdoms were poor, but the
wealth that existed was deposited in sacred retreats. The powers of the
State were the nobles, warlike and ignorant, rapidly becoming feudal
barons, acknowledging only a nominal fealty to the Crown. Kings had n