The church of St. Pancras at Canterbury is claimed to be one of the temples so preserved,[454] and there have survived down to our own times examples of the animal sacrifice which in early Christian days may well have been preserved by this famous edict.[455] But beyond these illustrations of the two stated objects of Pope Gregory's letter there are innumerable additional results from such a policy,[456] results which prove that British pagandom was not stamped out by edict or by sword, but was rather gradually borne down before the strength of the new religion--borne down and pushed into the background out of sight of the Church and the State, relegated to the cottage homes, the cattle-sheds and the cornfields, the countryside and the denizens thereof.[457] This is where we must search for it, and I think this important element in our studies will be better understood if we turn for one moment to the results of Christian contact with earlier belief in the one country where Christianity has set up its strongest political force, namely, Italy. Dr. Middleton wrote a series of remarkable letters which tell us much on this point, but before referring to this, I wish first to quote a hitherto buried record by an impartial observer[458] in the year 1704. It is a letter written from Venice to Sir Thomas Frankland, describing the travels and observations of a journey into Italy. The traveller writes:-- "I cannot leave Itally without making some general observations upon the country in general, and first as to their religion; it differs in name only now from what it was in the time of the ancient heathen Romans. I know this will sound very oddly with some sort of people, but compare them together and then let any reasonable man judge of the difference. The heathen Itallians had their gods for peace and for war, for plenty and poverty, for health and sickness, riches and poverty, to whom they addressed themselves and their wants; and the Christian Itallians have their patron saints for each of these things, to whom they also address according to their wants. The heathen sacrificed bulls and other beasts, and the Christian ones after the same manner a piece of bread, which a picture in the garden of Aldobrandina at Rome, painted in the time of Titus Vespasian, shews by the altar and the priests' vestments to have been the same as used now. The Pantheon at Rome was dedicated by the ancients to all the gods, and by the moderns to all the saints; the temple of Castor and Pollux at Rome is now dedicated to Cosmo and Damian, also twin brothers. The respect they pay to the Virgin Mary is far greater than what they pay to the Son, and whatever English Roman Catholics may be made to believe by their priests or impose upon us, it is certain that the devotion to the Madonnas in Itally is something more