At the time of this attempt the Germans had learned much from the superior civilization by which they were invaded. They were no longer the barbarous race which had trampled down the vineyards of northern Italy two hundred years before. Nor was this lesson in civilization yet over. For five hundred years Teuton and Roman continued the struggle. The one by the process growing wiser, richer in resource, and in supplementing his rude strength with the finer methods of old civilizations, becoming a more and more dangerous adversary; while the other saw himself more and more enfeebled, and, wearied with the conflict, felt decrepitude stealing surely over him.
In the year 300 the Teutons had ramified into six branches--the Burgundians, Thuringians, Franks, Saxons, Allemani, and Goths--all one in race, but each with its own distinct traits and life. The Allemani were so called from _aller-mannen_--all men; seeming to signify that this tribe was composed of the fragments of many tribes. Why this tribal name should have become that of the whole German nation is not apparent. Obviously the word Allemagne has this origin, just as Deutsch may be as readily traced to Teuton.
But of these six tribes it was the Goths who first adopted Christianity, and took on the forms of a higher civilization.
As some winged seed is wafted from a fair garden into a dark, distant forest, and there takes root and blossoms, so was the seed-germ of Christianity caught by the wind of destiny, and carried from Palestine to the heart of pagan Germany, where, strange to say, it found congenial soil.
The story is a romantic one. A Christian boy in Asia Minor, while straying on the shores of the Mediterranean, was captured by some Goths, who took their fair-haired prize home to their own land, and named him Ulfila.
The boy, with his heart all aflame for the religion in which he had been nurtured, told his captors the story of Calvary--of Christ and His gospel of peace and love--and lived to see the terrible sacrificial altars replaced by the Cross.
The Goths had no alphabet, so Ulfila invented one, and then translated the Bible into their rude speech. A part of this translation is now preserved in Sweden, and is the earliest extant specimen of the Gothic language. Even to the unlearned observer, this Gothic version of the Lord's Prayer, written by Ulfila more than one thousand five hundred years ago, bears such strong marks of kinship to the German and English versions that it can be easily read by us to-day, and makes us realize how much of the Teuton has mingled with our own life and speech.