At the same time the popes were incessant in their efforts to convert all the Christian peoples into one vast republic; and they attained their purpose in a great measure. The idea was a sublime one, springing so naturally from the unity of the doctrines which all were required to profess. As early as the twelfth century the idea was thus enunciated by Tertullian in his “Apologetica”--“We remain strangers to your factions and to your parties.... The republic of the human race is what we demand.” Such was the work of Christianity in that society of the Middle Ages of which it was the life and soul. It is necessary to follow it in the accomplishment of this varied task, and, if we would thoroughly understand it, we must consider it in itself, in its inward life, in its form of worship and liturgy, in its monasteries, in its clergy, and in its different institutions, for herein lay its means of action. The military power placed itself, as a general rule, at the service of the Church, and it was thus that Christianity was enabled to complete its work. Clovis, the conqueror of the Romans, the Germans, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths, was baptized at Rheims, and brought France within the fold of the Church, just when a great number of the barbarians, the new masters of the Roman empire, were embracing Arianism. In after-days the Church, represented by the sword of Joan of Arc, was instrumental in saving France and restoring her to herself. Between these two extreme points of the history of the Middle Ages, Charlemagne, Godefroi de Bouillon, St. Louis, the age of chivalry and the Crusades, prove to us that this combined action of military and religious life is a true exponent of the character of France. But when we come to consider the ordinary condition of things as they absolutely existed, we find it to be full of evils. Military life amongst the German people had produced feudalism, and with it a terrible anarchy. Royalty was powerless. Authority had not, so to speak, any centre; it was cut up and subdivided throughout the nation. Private or civil warfare became, by the mere force of things, legal for several centuries; and disorder, violence, oppression, and tyranny followed as a natural consequence. Military life, in all its manifestations, hampered and counteracted the beneficent influence of Christianity, and served as the last refuge of barbarism. The Church, however, managed to make the principle of feudalism exercise a moderating influence upon its very excesses, by the creation of chivalry, the noblest military institution which the world has ever known. Chivalry represented the Christian form of the profession of arms. The first duty was “to defend in this world the weakness of all, but especially the weakness of the Church, of justice, and of right.” “Fais ce que dois, adviegne que peut, C’hest commandé au chevalier.” _Ordinances of Chivalry._