the Teutoburger Wald; or before that again, when the Kempers and
Teutons burst over the Alps, to madden themselves with the fatal
wines of the rich south. And why did the Teutons NOT do it? Because
they were boys fighting against cunning men. Boiorich, the young
Kemper, riding down to Marius' camp, to bid him fix the place and
time of battle--for the Teuton thought it mean to use surprises and
stratagems, or to conquer save in fair and open fight--is the type of
the Teuton hero; and one which had no chance in a struggle with the
cool, false, politic Roman, grown grey in the experience of the forum
and of the camp, and still as physically brave as his young enemy.
Because, too, there was no unity among them; no feeling that they
were brethren of one blood. Had the Teuton tribes, at any one of the
great crises I have mentioned, and at many a crisis afterwards,
united for but three years, under the feeling of a common blood,
language, interest, destiny, Rome would have perished. But they
could not learn that lesson. They could not put aside their boyish
quarrels.

They never learnt the lesson till after their final victory, when the
Gospel of Christ--of a Being to whom they all owed equal allegiance,
in whose sight they were all morally equal--came to unite them into a
Christendom.

And it was well that they did not learn it sooner. Well for them and
for the world, that they did not unite on any false ground of
interest or ambition, but had to wait for the true ground of unity,
the knowledge of the God-man, King of all nations upon earth.

Had they destroyed Rome sooner, what would not they have lost? What
would not the world have lost? Christianity would have been stifled