It is strange how soon these savage northmen discarded their wooden idols, Woden, Thor, and Balder, the gods of thunder and of the sun--so that when Constantine the Great christianised the world, the Gothic chief Wulfila was ready to become a convert. Who this Wulfila was, and how he came to be at Constantinople, is not clear. As Bishop of the Goths he returned to missionarise his countrymen, the Dacian tribes, in the mighty plains of Philippopolis (A.D. 310-314), and made a translation of the Bible into Gothic. Even in our own day something of this precious manuscript remains, beautifully written in letters of gold on purple vellum, at the Swedish University of Upsala. From the earliest times the Goths had a rude alphabet (Runes), which Wulfila increased, with letters closely resembling English, in his translation of the Scriptures. Rude indeed! The letters were formed by staves on wooden boards, but all the same were destined to become most ornamental. Gothic letters are still in use for decorative purposes. Numerous Gothic manuscripts exist, written in these picturesque characters, and the inscription over the portal of Pedro el Cruel at the Alcazar at Seville is in Gothic. To this day, too, in the Muzaraba Chapel, under the eastern tower of the Cathedral of Toledo, the service is celebrated according to the Christian rite from Gothic missals, dating from the time of King Recaredo. * * * * * The line of Gothic rulers in Spain lasted for nearly two centuries and a half. No less than thirty kings succeeded each other in that period, most of whom died either by violence or in battle. Alaric, “the scourge of God,” never came into Spain, but Eurico, his immediate successor, did. Eurico was the greatest warrior of his time, and so versed in Christian polemics that he insisted on the entire nation becoming Arians like himself. Nothing but the close contact of the Goths with that hotbed of heresy, Constantinople, can account for a semi-barbarian indulging in a choice of divers forms of doctrine, nor for the power the Gothic bishops arrogated to themselves after the precedent of the Eastern prelates up to the time of Witica. Like the Greek patriarchs they were mixed up in every political intrigue, conspiracy, and revolution; made and unmade kings at their pleasure, and greatly influenced the ecclesiastical world by the decrees of their councils at Toledo. The Goths were, indeed, for ages a priest-ridden nation, and the names of their great archbishops have come down to us as landmarks in the land.