king these despotisms up again at certain periods,
and massing their constituent elements into larger or differently
constituted governments, with new agencies of progress added, according
as human mental conditions and needs required.

That those great ancient monarchies, as the Assyrian, Persian, etc., had
this effect, cannot well be doubted. But in the rise and fall of the
great Roman empire, this appears very plainly. How many nations and
small communities--far and near--isolated, independent, and more or less
engaged in wars among themselves or in the constant apprehension of
it--how many, we say, of such communities were gathered under the broad
wings of the Roman eagle! From Spain and England on the west, to the
borders of India on the east--from the Baltic on the north, to the
deserts of Africa on the south--all were brought under the Roman sway;
were brought under a common tranquillity (such as it was), under a
common government, common laws, a common civilization more or less. All
these countries were raised from a lower to a higher condition by their
subjection to Roman domination. How far superior in England was the
Roman civilization, its laws, manners, institutions, to the rude
Anglican and Saxon life!

Rome thus established a grand humanizing unity over all these different
regions, which otherwise had remained divided, hostile, or isolated from
each other.

In the next place, through the instrumentality of this Roman unity,
Christianity was established with comparative ease over the greater part
of the then known world. This would perhaps have been very difficult if
not impossible had these regions been occupied by a multitude of
independent, and most likely, warring sovereignties.

Christianity thus widely planted, and firmly rooted upon this Roman
civilization and by means of it, and this civilization, now perfected as
far as it was capable of being, or standing in the way of further human
progress, the empire fell to pieces, to make room for a new order of
things, in which Christianity, the remains of Roman civilization, and
the peculiar features of northern barbarian life, were the ingredients.
These elements, after numberless combinations, dissolutions, and
reconstructions, have resulted in the civilization of modern Europe. The
progress toward this civilization has everywhere exhibited a constant
tendency to larger and larger national unities--parts coalescing into
wholes, and these into yet lar