enriched by the plunder of churches and monasteries, once the patrimony of the poor. Nor was violence spared to promote conversion: Protestantism was established by main force in Iceland, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, and large portions of Germany. Of England the Protestant historian Hallam writes: "This is a somewhat humiliating admission that the Protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a foreign army" (Const. Hist. I, p. 93). Is it wonderful that, with such aids to diffusion, Protestantism should have spread like a forest fire?
36. The conversion of the pagan nations to Christianity, on the contrary, exhibits just the opposite features. That it cannot be accounted for by natural means becomes the more evident, if we consider the weak arguments to explain its progress which were invented by so able an advocate of paganism as the historian Gibbon in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He can find no more plausible explanation of the rapid growth of Christianity than by attributing it to these five causes: 1. The inflexible, intolerant zeal of the Christians; — but this could only offend and alienate the proud Romans. 2. The doctrine of a future life; — but this was no new doctrine at all. 3. The miracles ascribed to the Church; — but these were not natural means. 4. The pure and austere morals of the Christians; — but the question is, what made them so supernaturally pure and austere? 5. Their spirit of union and discipline; — but what natural power made them submit to that discipline? Gibbon also mentions the wealth of the Church; — but whence came this wealth, except from the converts, who gave up their fortunes for the benefit of their needy brethren? (For a thorough discussion of these pretended causes see Newman's Grammar of Assent, Ch. X, § 2.)
