The age in which he lived was a troublous one. The spectacle of a tempestuous sea may in itself excite our interest and inspire us with awe, but place in the midst of it a vessel containing human life, and how deeply is our interest intensified! What was the general character and position of the clergy in the fourth century? What was the attitude of the Church towards the sensuality, selfishness, luxury, of an effete and debased civilisation on the one hand, and the rude ferocity of young and strong barbarian races on the other? To what extent had Christianity leavened, or had it appreciably leavened at all, popular forms of thought and popular habits of life? What was the existing phase of monasticism? what the ordinary form of worship in the Catholic Church? what the established belief respecting the sacraments and the great verities of the Christian faith? In answer to such inquiries, and to many more, much useful information may be extracted from the works of so prolific a writer and preacher as Chrysostom. Being concerned also, as a preacher, with moral practice more than with abstract theology, his homilies reflect, like the writings of satirists, the manners of the age. The habits of private life, the fashionable amusements, the absurdities of dress, all the petty foibles, as well as the more serious vices of the society by which he was surrounded, are dragged out without remorse, and made the subjects of solemn admonition, or fierce invective, or withering sarcasm, or ironical jest.