und it warm and comfortable. Symmachus
sees nothing higher or better than custom; the secret of the
universe, says he, is unknowable; there is no inner life.
--He was confuted by a much more alive and less estimable
man: Ambrose, bishop of Milan,--with whom, also, both he and
Ausonius were on friendly terms. Ambrose's argument, too, is
illuminating: like the King of Hearts', it was in the main that
"you were not to talk nonsense." How ridiculous, said he, to
impute the victories of old Rome to the Religion of Numa and
favor of the Gods,--when the strength and valor of the Roman
soldier were quite enough to account for all. Thus he appears in
the strange role of a rationalist. Christianity, he continued,
was the one and only true religion; and all the rest--etc.,
etc., etc. Ambrose and his party were fighting towards a
definite and positive end; knew what they wanted, and meant to
get it. Of course they won. Symmachus and the senate were
fighting only for a sentiment about the past, and had no chance
at all. And it really did not matter: Rome was doomed anyway.

But in passing I must e'en linger on a note of sublimity in this
petition of Symmachus: of sublime faith;--when he makes Dea
Roma refer to her history as having "hitherto flowed in an
uninterrupted course of piety." It makes one think that they
taught Roman history in their schools then much in the same way
that we teach our national histories in our schools today; here
and in England, and no doubt elsewhere, _"An uninterrupted course
of piety!"_ quotha. Marry come up!

But all this is anticipating the years a little: looking into
the eighties, whereas we have not finished with the sixties yet.
Julian died in 363, on the 26th of June; and within a couple of
years, you may say,--many said so then,--the Gods began to avenge
him. Nature herself took a hand, to warn a degenerate world. In
365 came an earthquake; gollowed by a huge withdrawal of the
sea, so that you could explore dry-shod the antres of the
sea-gods. And then a tidal wave which threw large ships up onto the
roofs of houses two miles inland, and killed in Alexandria alone
fifty thousand people.--"Aha!" said the Pagans, "we told you
so."--"Nothing of the kind!" said the Christians in reply; "did
not we set a saint on the beach at Epidaurus, before whom the
oncoming billow stopped, bowed its head, and retired?" Well; no
doubt that was so; but Alexandria was a perfect hotbed of
sa