O ye vain false gods of Hellas! Ye are vanished evermore! Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the empire its influence had been felt permeating the entire community. Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative element--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle previously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but by 118 love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reeking abominations of a sensual age. Yet this mighty energy thus at work eluded the notice, or excited only the disdain, of some of the keenest observers and greatest thinkers the world has seen. Classical literature contains only a few short notices of that religion which was transforming the age. A galaxy of philosophers and historians, gazing mournfully at the seething mass of moral putrefaction around them, and profoundly conscious of its apparently cureless evil, treated as contemptible the most powerful moral agent in the world--that regenerative principle which was to reorganize society on a higher type than ever was known before.[193] The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation, and paganism seemed entirely unconscious of its impending doom. But this wonderful influence, which accomplished so much, seemed at length strangely to lose its power, and did not fulfil the regenerative work which it began. It failed to check the degeneracy of the age or to avert the dissolution of the empire. The many crimes of that colossal orgy cried to heaven for vengeance. The taint was too inveterate to be eradicated; the evil was immedicable; Rome was already effete and moribund. It was weighed in the balance and found wanting. Therefore the inexorable penalty, which evermore follows wrong, as a shadow its substance, was suffered to descend. An awful Nemesis, like an avenging Fate, overtook the great and wicked city 119 in its pride and guilt; and the mystical Babylon of the West, reeking with sensuality, idolatry, and blood, soon beheld the Goths at her gates, and the Huns within her walls.[194] [31] A deal of fanciful theory has been indulged in as to the origin of the Catacombs. They have been attributed to a pre-historic race of Troglodytes, who loathed the light of day, and burrowed like moles in the earth. MacFarlane has an eloquent apostrophe to the old Etrurians, by whom he imagined they were excavated twelve hundred years before the Christian era. We have seen also how they were erroneously attributed to the pagan Romans.