Good Tuesday Morning!

1. Question – I haven’t read about the fall of Rome, have you?

2. Thought – Very few people ever take the time to read such masterpieces as Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but to read this particular work is worthwhile for the picture contained therein of the world today. Those who have thought that one of the greatest empires ever built by man fell because of the invasion of the virile people from the North – the Huns, the Goths, and the Vandals, who came sweeping down on Rome and laid waste the great Eternal City – are mistaken, according to Gibbon.

“No,” proclaims Gibbon, “that did not cause the fall of the Roman Empire; that was merely a consequence of the fall.” The reasons he enumerates for the fall of the empire were these: The rapid increase in divorce, undermining the sanctity and dignity of the home; higher and higher taxes for bread and circuses to gain support of the masses for a totalitarian government; the mad desire for pleasure – pleasure that was becoming indecent; piling of weapons upon weapons when the real enemies were within; the decay of religious faith, so that religion became a hollow form.

“These,” says Gibbon, “are the reasons for the decay and decline of the Roman Empire” – and every one of them is a great and terrible reality to deal with in the world today, and particularly, it seems, in the United States. Does this mean that American civilization has attained its zenith and is about to experience a decline or a complete breakdown? Herein, certainly, is cause for concern. (Adapted from PEO Record, (1000 Tips & Quips from Herbert V. Prochnow)