It is as absurd to suppose that the “moral element of Christianity” will continue to exist after the erosion of Christian dogma, as to expect that a tree we have hewn down will continue to bear fruit. It may indeed for a time remain verdant, and even put forth new shoots, just as we often see the loveliest flowers and fruits of Christianity in the lives and characters of individuals with whom the Christian faith has almost ceased to exist. But let us not be deceived. The lingering sap will cease to flow, and the last semblance of life will fade away. “The elements of dissolution have been multiplying all around us,” writes Lecky. And when rationalism or secularism, or neo-paganism in other words, which has already corroded Christendom to so great an extent, shall have accomplished its work of disintegration with the aid of godless schools and gross literature, society will, I repeat, be compelled to restore Christianity, or slavery, or perish. CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION “At the end of the fourth century,” writes Guizot, “the Church saved Christianity ... resisted the internal dissolution of the Empire and the barbarians, and became the bond, the medium, and the principle of civilization.... Had the Church not existed the whole world must have been abandoned to purely material force” (_History of Civilization_, I, 38).... “When all was chaos, when every great social combination was vanishing, the Church proclaimed the unity of her doctrine and the universality of her right; this is a great and powerful fact which has rendered immense service to humanity” (_ibid._, II, 19). This unity was indeed the great factor in European civilization. On it the new civil societies, like wild olive branches, were grafted, so to speak. It became the bond of political unity, a kind of centripetal force, we may say, and the redemption from that inordinate love of independence which characterized the barbarians. Consequently the new civil societies made the maintenance of religious unity the foremost object of their policy. It became the public law of all Europe and the common law of each state. To impugn this unity was considered a most heinous offence not against God only, but against the nation and against all Christendom. “Thus,” writes another great Protestant, “Christianity became crystallized into a single bond embracing all nations, and giving to all life, civilization, and all the riches of the mind” (Hurter, _Life of Innocent III_, I, 38).