Page:The Bible of Amiens.djvu/116

86 and the mountains of Bohemia; and the peace of Europe was secured by the obedience of Germany."

53. For, in the south, Theodoric had already "sheathed the sword in the pride of victory and the vigour of his age—and his farther reign of three and thirty years was consecrated to the duties of civil government." Even when his son-in-law, Alaric, fell by Clovis' hand in the battle of Poitiers, Theodoric was content to check the Frank power at Aries, without pursuing his success, and to protect his infant grandchild, correcting at the same time some abuses in the civil government of Spain. So that the healing sovereignty of the great Goth was established from Sicily to the Danube—and from Sirmium to the Atlantic ocean.

54. Thus, then, at the close of the fifth century, you have Europe divided simply by her watershed; and two Christian kings reigning, with entirely beneficent and healthy power—one in the north—one in the south—the mightiest and worthiest of them married to the other's youngest sister: a saint queen in the north—and a devoted and earnest Catholic woman, queen mother in the south. It is a conjunction of things memorable enough in the Earth's history,—much to be thought of, oh fast whirling reader, if ever, out of the crowd of pent up cattle driven across Rhine, or Adige, you can