The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"74 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.mightiest nations quailed, was unable to crush theinfant Church or arrest her progress. In a shorttime, we find this colossal Empire going to pieces,and the Head of the Catholic Church dispensinglaws to Christendom in the very city from whichthe imperial Cassars had promulgated their edictsagainst Christianity !During the fifth and sixth centuries, the Gothsand Vandals, the Huns, Visigoths, and Lombards,and other immense tribes of Barbarians, came downlike a torrent from the North, invadingthe fairestportions of Southern Europe. They dismemberedthe Roman Empire, and swept away nearly everytrace of the old Roman civilization. They plunderedcities, levelled churches, and left ruin and desolation after them. Yet, though conquering for awhile,th^y were conquered in turn, by submitting to thesweet yoke of the Gospel. And thus, as even theinfidel Gibbon observes, The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious and decisivevictories over the learned and luxurious citizens ofthe Roman Empire; and over the warlike Barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted theempire and embraced the religion of the Romans." 1Mohammedanism took its rise in the seventhcentury in Arabia, and made rapid conquests inAsia. In the fifteenth century, Constantinople wascaptured by the followers of the false prophet, whoeven threatened to subject all Europe to their sway.1Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire, eh. xxxvii. p. 450.