Flavian's defeat and death perished the last hopes of Pagan Rome. Theodosius entered the city in triumph, but never was a victory so gently used. Not a drop of blood was shed. Not a senator was dispossessed. The very sons of Eugenius, Asbogastus and Flavian, were permitted to retain their municipal offices, and Theodosius expressed his regret that Flavian had perished in battle. But the laws against heathen sacrifices were now put into execution, even in Rome itself, and the annona templorum was henceforth suppressed. We hear nothing of the demolition of temples or the destruction of statues. Theodosius is represented by Prudentius to have expressed to the senate almost the very thought of Gibbon, that these stately edifices might be suffered to remain as so many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ." Marmora tabenti respergine tincta lavate, O Proceres, liceat statuas consistere puras Artificum magnorum opera; hæc pulcherrima nostræ In vitium versæ monumenta coinquinet artis. Contr. Symmach, 501, &c. When Theodosius died, in 395, his sons Arcadius and Honorius were only fourteen and seven years old, but their guardians, Rufinus and Stilicho, the latter of whom had married Serena, the niece of Theodosius, governed the empire; and in the West Stilicho carried out the conciliatory policy of the last great Roman emperor. The insolence of the Pagans, who regarded the laws of Theodosius as dead with him, obliged Stilicho, in the name of Honorius, to issue, in 399, an edict, which says:-" As we have already by a wholesome law done away with sacrifices and profane rites, &c."* And yet, up to the very year in which Rome was besieged by Alaric, inscriptions still extant attest that votive tablets to the heathen gods were set up with impunity in public places. In 404, the poet Claudian describes the appearance of Rome as full of splendid shrines, and the temples still in all their glory. The gods of stone, of marble, of bronze, of silver, of gold, were standing upon their pedestals-even the jewels with which Pagan credulity adorned them remained on their necks and arms. When Zosimus charges Stilicho with stripping off the gold from the doors of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he bears testimony to the general integrity of the temples, as Serena's exploit attests the general immunity of the statues from pillage. *Cod. Theod." XVI. x. 17. + Thus :-" IOVI OPTIMO CAPITOLINO SACRVM M. NVMMIVS M. F. PAL. HILARIVS V. C. PRAEF. VRB. EX V.F. COER PRO SALVTE NVMMIAE VAHALENAE." Hilarius was made Prefect of Rome in 408.-Beugnot, tom. ii. p. 17. We have now reached a period of sixty-seven years from the death, and more than ninety years from the conversion of Constantine, and we have seen how far from the truth is Gibbon's assertion "that the temples of the Roman world were subverted about sixty years after the conversion of Constantine." We have traced the legislation of the Christian emperors, and we have seen throughout that legislation two leading principles. First, the desire to undermine and overthrow the vast fabric of superstition and moral corruption which was inseparably connected with idolatry; and secondly, to preserve, in the interests of art and civilization, the stately edifices, and even the beautiful statues which had been used in Pagan worship. We do not mean to pretend that these were their sole, or even chief motives of action. But, taking their policy as a whole, we can see these two principles running through it. "No more sacrifices," decreed Honorius in 399, "but let the ornaments of the cities be respected." Except the unlucky necklace taken by Serena, the jewels remained on the idols of Rome until they were seized, in 408, to purchase a short respite from Alaric. But when the Gothic conqueror returned, in 410, and Rome fell under the successive barbaric invasions, statues and temples became mingled in a common ruin, aud the remains which still astonish travellers were saved from destruction chiefly by the care of the Popes. Even Gibbon admits that, "of the Christian hierarchy, the Bishops of Rome were commonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive charge be opposed to the meritorious act of saving and converting the majestic structure of the Pantheon."+ Our space will not permit us to trace their history any further. We have been obliged to omit many important details in the story, and we must refer our readers to the pages of M. Allard, whose work we have done little more than epitomize, for a complete survey of the subject. But if we have succeeded in disproving the assertions of Gibbon, we shall have done something towards clearing up the policy of the Christian emperors towards the Pagan temples. W. R. BROWNLOW. [The substance of this Paper was delivered as a Lecture before the Torquay Natural History Society, on January 3, 1881.] ART. III. LITERATURE FOR THE YOUNG. I. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 1. The Catholic Children's Magazine. London & Dublin: James Duffy. 2. The Juvenile Missionary Keepsake. London: J. Snow. 3. The Juvenile Missionary Magazine. Edinburgh: Oliphant & Co. 4. The Band of Hope Review. London: S. W. Partridge & Co. 5. Little Folks. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. 6. Golden Childhood. London: Ward, Lock & Co. 7. Little Wide Awake. London: Routledge & Sons. 8. The Boys' Own Paper. 9. The Girls' Own Paper. 10. Union. Jack. London: 11. Every Boy's Magazine. London: "Leisure Hour" Office. London: Routledge & Sons. 12. Every Girl's Magazine. London: Routledge & Sons. 13. Boys of England. London. THAT is the charm of childhood ?" asks Mgr. Dupanloup, W in his well-known work, " L'Enfant," when he is about to sum up his impressions after twenty-five years' experience of education; and he gives the answer of a venerated friend of his own :it is not alone tlie fascination of simplicity and candour, not alone the charm of innocence; there is an attraction yet beyond: "This it is children are the joy of the present-but, above all, they are the hope of the future." The hope of the family is in the new generation, entrusted with its name and honour, and guarded with lavish love. The hope of the State is in the children of its subjects; they are the future "people" on whom the strength and prosperity of the nation depends; it watches them sedulously so that they be taught after its own heart, in these degenerate days mainly with the view of making them peaceable subjects and efficient toilers and spinners for the common good. But more than all, they are the hope of the Church, the heirs of her faith, her sanctity, her traditions; her future rests with them. Therefore our hope is in them perpetually, as they come fresh and pliant, full of the ardour of young life, peopling our homes and filling our schools. Whatever concerns them is of vital interest. As the heirs of Christ, there is no greater work than to guard them, no greater calamity than that one of them should perish, no greater mystery in the world than the tremendous issues hidden under their present littleness-littleness of knowledge, where yet there may be mental power to lead other minds captive-littleness of experience, where the life may yet become part of the whole world's experience-bodily littleness, wherein are locked the secrets of human souls, whose influence will touch hundreds of others, ere the new generation melts out of the world's sight into eternity, leaving the world's face in some way changed for their coming here and for their passage thither. It is this thought of the future-as well as the responsibility where there is question of the impressionable souls of the young -that gives almost an awful importance to what otherwise might seem but trifles concerning children. There can be nothing trifling where their welfare is touched. They are in our keeping to be, as we trust, the strength of the Church, and the seed of her glory in successive faithful generations unto remotest time. The child is the hope of the future. This fact is thoroughly realized by the enemies of God's kingdom. In the full appreciation of it, all attacks upon the Church are planned. These are not the days of physical torture, but of a more terrible and subtle force-legalized moral persecution; and the first brunt of it is directed by the new laws of every antiChristian government against the faith of the children in the schools, and against the freedom of Christian teaching. When at the orders of the Municipal Council of Paris, the Prefect of the Seine caused the crucifixes to be torn down from the schoolroom walls and carted away like rubbish to be destroyed, the action was a type of the whole plan adopted by Governments warring against the Church. Their first aim is not to deprive Catholics of political rights, nor at once to banish the clergy, nor to silence their voice in the pulpit, nor to close churches, nor to enforce a pledge of infidelity as the proof of loyalty to the State. All these measures, in modified forms, may come afterwards, but the world has grown older and wiser since the attacks upon religion were begun with such open defiance. To take the cross away out of the children's sight, to banish the Crucified as a stumbling-block, a remnant of medieval foolishness, interfering with secular learning and social progress; to hope that outside the godless schoolroom in due time the obsolete doctrines swept out thence will be destroyed as worthless; this is the aim and these the tactics of the persecutors of our day, whether in revolutionized Italy, or in the French war against "clericalism, the enemy," or in the Kulturkampf beyond the Rhine. Even the free Republic of the United States has developed a taint of the same worldly wisdom, and lays hands upon the children's souls to barter them for national prosperity. American citizens may VOL. VI.—NO. 11. [Third Series.] BB boast liberty in all else, but in this burning question of schools and education Catholics have to complain of their greatest wrong, forced, as they are, to pay taxes for the support of godless schools from which they must steadily refuse to receive any benefit for their children under pain of disloyalty to the Church. In England the same central ground of contention is indicated by the increasing cry for secular education. In Ireland the struggle on the same ground is for life or death; and it is chiefly against the children that the war of cruel kindness is waged by every proselytizing agency. In a word, wherever men are found, the battle-ground of to-day is no other than that of education. All the world is realizing the truth of the value of securing the possession of the first dawn of young intelligence. We are not alone in regarding children as the hope of the future. They are so regarded by every creed and faction, down to the Atheist and the Utilitarian, the Communist and the Nihilist. And from all rival claims of error it is our solemn charge to keep the children that are the hope of the Church, and to win others that as yet are strangers to the " mighty Mother;" and so vast a work as this unceasing guardianship must be carried on with a zealous use of every means that can aid towards success-an carnest use of every invention and device, even the least, so long as it can add something towards making such a success secure. Looking back at the first years of life, everyone must be able from experience to see in a vivid light the strange double process of which all education consists, and the consequent difficulty of guiding as well as teaching. The instruction deliberately given during hours of study does not make up half the sum of what the child is, perhaps quite unconsciously, learning. Unasked impressions crowd fast upon the young mind, as soon as it is capable of observing and remembering, and in most cases the art of reading is no sooner taught than self-education begins. From every page of print there may be arising what might hastily be called chance influences, to make upon the mind that found them for itself a deeper mark than any formal lessons. As the old proverb says, "Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there;" and a large proportion of the chance seeds are sown by casual reading. Especially with boys, reading becomes quickly a new active living power, and with many it is an insatiable appetite only satisfied for the moment, and continually in need of fresh food. The necessity of suitably gratifying the reading taste of the young has led to the formation of an immense and varied literature meant specially for their use. Upon its nature depends to a great extent what we have called their self-education. By rights, it ought to be in religious tendency, if not completely in the spirit of the child's own faith, |