Taking one's stand at Rome, and looking toward the north, what does one see for nearly one hundred years? Wave after wave rising out of the north, the land of night, and wonder, and the terrible unknown; visible only as the light of Roman civilization strikes their crests, and they dash against the Alps, and roll over through the mountain passes, into the fertile plains below. Then at last they are seen but too well; and you discover that the waves are living men, women, and children, horses, dogs, and cattle, all rushing headlong into that great whirlpool of Italy: and yet the gulf is never full. The earth drinks up the blood; the bones decay into the fruitful soil; the very names and memories of whole tribes are washed away. And the result of an immigration which may be counted by hundreds of thousands is this--that all the land is waste. The best authorities which I can give you (though you will find many more in Gibbon) are--for the main story, Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis. Himself a Goth, he wrote the history of his race, and that of Attila and his Huns, in good rugged Latin, not without force and sense. Then Claudian, the poet, a bombastic panegyrist of contemporary Roman scoundrels; but full of curious facts, if one could only depend on them. Then the earlier books of Procopius De Bello Gothico, and the Chronicle of Zosimus. Salvian, Ennodius and Sidonius Apollinaris, as Christians, will give you curious details, especially as to South France and North Italy; while many particulars of the first sack of Rome, with comments thereon which express the highest intellects of that day, you will find in St. Jerome's Letters, and St. Augustine's City of God. But if you want these dreadful times _explained_ to you, I do not think you can do better than to take your Bibles, and to read the Revelations of St. John the Apostle. I shall quote them, more than once, in this lecture. I cannot help quoting them. The words come naturally to my lips, as fitter to the facts than any words of my own. I do not come here to interpret the Book of Revelations. I do not understand that book. But I do say plainly, though I cannot interpret the book, that the book has interpreted those times to me. Its awful metaphors give me more living and accurate pictures of what went on than any that Gibbon's faithful details can give. You may see, if you have spiritual eyes wherewith to see, the Dragon, the serpent, symbol of political craft and the devilish wisdom of the Roman, giving authority to the Beast, the symbol of brute power; to mongrel AEtiuses and Bonifaces, barbarian Stilichos, Ricimers and Aspars, and a host of similar adventurers, whose only strength was force. You may see the world wondering after the beast, and worshipping brute force, as the only thing left to believe in. You may see the nations of the world gnawing their tongues for pain, and blaspheming God, but not repenting of their deeds.