In this way did the Papacy, the executive head of the entire Church, make use of all the manifold forces of the human spirit. The practical man of affairs was given quite as much of an opportunity to distinguish himself as the dreamer who found happiness in the silence of the woods. There was no lost motion. Nothing was allowed to go to waste. And the result was such an increase of power that soon neither emperor nor king could afford to rule his realm without paying humble attention to the wishes of those of his subjects who confessed themselves the followers of the Christ. The way in which the final victory was gained is not without interest. For it shows that the triumph of Christianity was due to practical causes and was not (as is sometimes believed) the result of a sudden and overwhelming outburst of religious ardor. The last great persecution of the Christians took place under the Emperor Diocletian. Curiously enough, Diocletian was by no means one of the worst among those many potentates who ruled Europe by the grace of their body-guards. But he suffered from a complaint which alas! is quite common among those who are called upon to govern the human race. He was densely ignorant upon the subject of elementary economics. He found himself possessed of an empire that was rapidly going to pieces. Having spent all his life in the army, he believed the weak point lay in the organization of the Roman military system, which entrusted the defenses of the outlying districts to colonies of soldiers who had gradually lost the habit of fighting and had become peaceful rustics, selling cabbages and carrots to the very barbarians whom they were supposed to keep at a safe distance from the frontiers. It was impossible for Diocletian to change this venerable system. He therefore tried to solve the difficulty by creating a new field army, composed of young and agile men who at a few weeks’ notice could be marched to any particular part of the empire that was threatened with an invasion.