Critics have never tired of hurling diatribes at Gibbon, because his studies led him to the conclusion that Christianity was a detrimental force in its bearing on the Roman Empire. Yet many more recent authorities have been led to the same conclusion, and it is difficult to say why this estimate need cause umbrage to anyone, whatever his religious prejudices. The Roman commonwealth was a body politic which, following the course of all human institutions, must sooner or later have been overthrown. In the broader view it does not seem greatly to matter whether or not Christianity contributed to this result. That the Christians were an inharmonious element in the state can hardly be in question. As such, they cannot well be supposed to have contributed to communal progress. But there were obvious sources of disruption which seem so much more important that one may well be excused for doubting whether the influence of the early Christians in this connection was more than infinitesimal for good or evil. Without attempting a comprehensive view of the subject--which, indeed, would be quite impossible within present spacial limits--it is sufficient to point out such pervading influences as the prevalence of slavery, the growing wealth of the few and the almost universal pauperism of the many fostered by the paternal government, and the decrease of population, particularly among the best classes, as abnormal elements in a body politic, the influence of which sooner or later must make themselves felt disastrously.