of the legions, and not the influence of all the false idols, that turned in their favour the issue of battles. Valentinian was murdered before the final step was taken, and his successor hesitated. Ambrose had to fly from Milan, for the soldiery boasted that they would stable their horses in the churches and press the clergy as soldiers. Alaric soon arrived on the scene, the Roman aristocracy became absorbed by the Christianising population, and Paganism at last gradually died out in 493, and the new religion took its place in the old temples. THE DEFENCE OF THE PAGAN IDOLS. The ruin of Paganism and its idols took place in the age of the Emperor Theodosius (378-395). The Roman priests, with their robes of purple, chariots of state, and sumptuous entertainments, were the admiration of the people; and they found their great champion and advocate in Symmachus, who in turn was baffled by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, whose influence caused the Pagan orator to be exiled. On a vote of the Senate as to whether the worship of Jupiter or of Christ should be the religion of the Romans, a large majority condemned Jupiter, and this led to a special committee of officers, who were directed to shut up the temples and destroy the instruments of idolatry. The Sophists who stood by the Pagan religion describe the acts of the Christian image-breakers as a dreadful and amazing prodigy which covered the earth with darkness. They pathetically relate how the Pagan temples were converted into sepulchres, and how the filthy monks polluted holy places with relics of martyrs which were nothing better than the heads--salted and pickled--of those infamous malefactors who, for the multitude of their crimes, had suffered an ignominious death. But the monks triumphed, and the bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy were transported from their obscure graves in solemn pomp and deposited in the Church of the Apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded in Constantinople. The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of the Catholic world; and the influence of this part of the worship of the faithful lasted during the twelve hundred years which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN DEMOLITION OF TEMPLES.