sleep a nightmare, comfort an
accomplishment, and the very act of living an industry. Almost one may
say that the gods lived only in the imagination of the ignorant and the
jests of the learned. In a growing patriciate home had become a
weariness, marriage a form, children a trouble, and the decline of
motherhood an alarming fact. Augustus tried the remedy of legislation.
Henceforth marriage became a duty to the state. As between men and
women, things were near a turning-point. Woman cannot long endure
scorn nor the absence of veneration. A law older than the tablets of
stone shall be her defence. Love is the price of motherhood. Soon or
late, unless it be mingled in some degree with her passion, the
wonderful gift is withdrawn and men cease to be born of her. Slowly,
both the bitterness and the understanding of its loss turn the world to
virtue. A new and lofty sentiment was appearing. Woman, weary of her
part in the human comedy, had begun to inspire a love sublime as the
miracle in which she is born to act.

Happily, there were good people in Rome, even noble families, with whom
sacrifice had still a sacred power, and who practised the four virtues
of honor, bravery, wisdom, and temperance. In rural Latium, rich and
poor clung to the old faith, and everywhere a plebeian feared alike the
assessor and the gods, and sacrificed to both.

It is no wonder the gods were falling when even Jupiter had been
outdone by a modest man who dwelt on the Palatine. One might have seen
him there any day--a rather delicate figure with shiny blue eyes and
hair now turning gray. He flung his lightning with unerring aim across
the great purple sea into Arabia, Africa, and Spain, and northward to
the German Ocean and eastward to the land of the Goths. The genius of
this remarkable man had outdone the imagination of priest and poet. A
genius for organization, like that of his illustrious uncle, gave to
Augustus a power greater than human hands had yet wielded.

A bit of gossip had travelled far and excited his curiosity. It spoke
of a new king, with power above that of men, who was to conquer the
world. Sayings of certain learned men came out of Judea into the land
of lost hope. They told of the king of promise--that he would bring to
men the gift of immortal life, that the heavens would declare his
authority. Superstitious to the blood and bone, not a few were
thrilled by the message.

The minds of thinking men were