disputed whether or no Christ was born after the fashion of other
infants. The details of this dispute need not here be entered into.


CENTURY X.


"The deplorable state of Christianity in this century, arising partly
from that astonishing ignorance that gave a loose rein both to
superstition and immorality, and partly from an unhappy concurrence of
causes of another kind, is unanimously lamented by the various writers
who have transmitted to us the history of these miserable times" (p.
213). Yet "the gospel" spread. The Normans embraced "a religion of which
they were totally ignorant" (p. 214), A.D. 912, because Charles the
Simple of France offered Count Rollo a large territory on condition that
he would marry his daughter and embrace Christianity: Rollo gladly
accepted the territory and its encumbrances. Poland came next into the
fold of the Church, for the Duke of Poland, Micislaus, was persuaded by
his wife to profess Christianity, A.D. 965, and Pope John III. promptly
sent a bishop and a train of priests to convert the duke's subjects.
"But the exhortations and endeavours of these devout missionaries, who
were unacquainted with the language of the people they came to instruct
[how effective must have been their arguments!] would have been entirely
without effect, had they not been accompanied with the edicts and penal
laws, the promises and threats of Micislaus, which dejected the courage
and conquered the obstinacy of the reluctant Poles" (p. 214). "The
Christian religion was established in Russia by means every way similar
to those that had occasioned its propagation in Poland" (p. 215); the
Greek wife of the Russian duke persuaded him to adopt her creed, and he
was baptized A.D. 987. Mosheim assumes that the Russian people followed