The land was a garden of Eden before them, behind a howling wilderness, as is so graphically told in Gibbon's great history.

Many of the most important centres of learning were destroyed, and for centuries Minerva and Apollo forsook the haunts of men.

The other equally important cause was the change wrought by Christianity.

The brotherhood of man, the care of the body, the gospel of practical virtues formed the essence of the teaching of the Founder--in these the Kingdom of Heaven was to be sought; in these lay salvation.

But the world was very evil, all thought that the times were waxing late, and into men's minds entered as never before a conviction of the importance of the four last things--death, judgment, heaven and hell.