Though the forms it has assumed and the animosities
it has aroused have often sundered men and produced warfare, yet it has
at other times been the means of promoting association. A common worship
has often, as among the Greeks, mitigated war and furnished the basis of
union, while it is from the triumph of Christianity over the barbarians
of Europe that modern civilization springs. Had not the Christian Church
existed when the Roman Empire went to pieces, Europe, destitute of any
bond of association, might have fallen to a condition not much above
that of the North American Indians or only received civilization with an
Asiatic impress from the conquering scimiters of the invading hordes
which had been welded into a mighty power by a religion which, springing
up in the deserts of Arabia, had united tribes separated from time
immemorial, and, thence issuing, brought into the association of a
common faith a great part of the human race.
Looking over what we know of the history of the world, we thus see
civilization everywhere springing up where men are brought into
association, and everywhere disappearing as this association is broken
up.
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