(Compare Neander, ii.p.

169.) M.Beugnot shows that this was the case throughout the north and centre of Italy and in Sicily.

But neither of these authors has adverted to one fact, which must have tended greatly to retard the progress of Christianity in these quarters.

It was still chiefly a slave population which cultivated the soil; and however, in the towns, the better class of Christians might be eager to communicate "the blessed liberty of the gospel" to this class of mankind; however their condition could not but be silently ameliorated by the humanizing influence of Christianity; yet, on the whole, no doubt the servile class would be the least fitted to receive the gospel; and its general propagation among them would be embarrassed by many peculiar difficulties.

The rural population was probably not entirely converted before the general establishment of the monastic institutions.