speculations of moment, the influence of paganism was felt, and the presence of the "Pontifex" solicited. Paganism was associated likewise with the recreations and amusements of the people. The state-holidays, with their games, shows, and dissipation, were its festival days. It was a god that sent them gladiators and wild beasts, or, at least, it was in honour of a god that they were immolated. Then the domestic hearth was rendered doubly dear to the Roman, from the fact that he had always regarded it as the sanctuary of the gods. It must, therefore, be admitted that the people of Roman descent were interested in the preservation of their old religious traditions. It is clear that the absurdity of paganism, in many particulars, was recognized by the thinking members of the community; but old institutions must be preserved, and ancestral ideas must be respected; and, above all, there must be some influence from the next world to co-operate with the terrors of the law in rendering the masses good subjects. Now the present system, paganism, was sufficient for this purpose. It was earthly and material in its ends, while it was indulgent and severe in its sanctions; and as it attached the people to the civil government, by conjointly with it legalizing their contracts; as it attached them to their families by witnessing their domestic joys; it answered all the purposes for which the Romans wanted a religion, and to reject it for an untried system would be exposing their national institutions to the danger of being subverted, but to abandon it for a system like Christianity would be to give up the ideas upon which many of their institutions rested, and their race had conquered and prospered. So in the Roman parts of that great empire which ruled the destinies of the world, when the foundations of the Christian Church were laid, there were many principles maintained, and many influences at work, which were directly opposed to the maxims and precepts of the Gospel. Let us see, if the manners of the Greek population were less infected with the leaven of sin and error. DIVISION II. THE GREEKS. § 1. Manners and Morals.-Adown the promontory of ancient Greece, there were cities renowned in olden story, and still renowned for literature and the arts; where men of mind were congregated, Greeks in poetry and philosophy as well as in name: And on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, and through the provinces of Asia Minor, there were towns and cities, rich and idle, where the tones of the lute and lyre were ever heard; where a light-hearted, gay population passed the eve in feasting, dancing, and amusement. Pleasures, mental and physical; indulgence, refined and beastly; appear to have been the distinguishing characteristics of Grecian manners at the time of the first propagation of Christianity. Who had not heard of Athens, that city of the sciences? Old "literati," dwelling in distant lands, dreamed of Athens and its classic groves, and the rich reading ones of Rome voyaged over land and sea to visit the City of the Muse, and to drink inspiration at its source. On they came, annually hastening to Athens, from which, as a centre, they made the tour of the other cities of Greece. It is an ordinary observation that the morals of cities are not much improved by a confluence of strangers,-a consequence of the fact that the morals of idlers, loungers, and seekers of pleasure are not apt to be the purest in the community. The cities of Greece were generally full of strangers, dissipated men from Rome, who came in search of intellectual enjoyment, and profligates from the East, who came to while away their hours in the midst of the amusements which these cities developed. There was but little energy in the Greek character at this time. War had become, so far as the Greeks were concerned, a matter of history, and the spirit of enterprise had almost died out. They lived in a fine climate, where nature was very bountiful, and having enough of the necessaries, and even the luxuries of life, without much labour, they sank into indolence and inactivity, and yielded themselves ready captives to pleasure. Sensuality broke out among them in a revolting form. It was fanned by the foreign influence in the cities. It spread from mind to mind, involving in a common conflagration the learned and the uneducated classes. It was Corinth was at this time an exception in one particular among the indolent cities of Greece. a commercial place, full of traders and foreign merchants. Its position on the isthmus of Peloponnesus attracted to it a considerable trade, for it was on the high road of all the ships that traded between Italy and Africa. One would have thought that the energy of character required for the maritime pursuits of its inhabitants, would have rendered Corinth a moral "oasis" in the wild desert of Greek impiety. Corinth might naturally be supposed to have embraced the stern virtues of paganism, while Athens was given up to softness and idleness. But if busy, bustling Corinth was steeped in immorality, what must not have been the depravity of the inactive cities of the Peloponnesus? Yet there is a fact related of Corinthian vice by Strabo, which has scarcely a parallel in history; it is as follows:-"There was at Corinth a temple of Venus, to which were attached more than a thousand prostitutes - slaves, who had been presented to the goddess, to whom the whole city was dedicated. It was a common practice to vow such offerings as these. These women of Venus were employed on important occasions to implore the succour of the goddess. They were honoured by public monuments, and in the verses of the most illustrious poets." 1 Our ideas of indecency can scarcely descend below this picture, prostitutes propitiating the divinity in the name of the community at large, 1 Strabo lib. viii. p. 378, D. Athen. lib. xiii. p. 573, C. their praises sung, their "virtues" honoured, and their names transmitted to posterity! Greece was steeped in sensuality, and its tendencies in consequence were not in the direction of a system whose fundamental doctrine is unspotted purity of life. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, there were evidences of inclinations appearing in some parts of Greece, which, considered naturally, gave some grounds for the hope, that Christianity would get a hearing at least in the towns of Lesser Asia, and in the classic cities of the Peloponnesus. For Greece theoretically proclaimed its admiration of chastity, while it was practically given up to the indul gence of every vile passion. Corinth, it is true, worshipped impure Venus, but then Ephesus, not less a Greek city, was ardently devoted to the service of the chaste Diana, as we learn from the 18th chapter of the " Acts of the Apostles;" so much so, that the possibility of having her privileges intruded upon, was sufficient to cause a popular tumult, and "to throw the whole city into confusion."1 Then there was the insatiable desire of novel theories, excited among the Greeks, by the philosophic spirit there so prevalent, which could not but be in favour of the diffusion of Christian truth. We are told on the best authority, that, "all the Athenians and strangers that were there, employed themselves in nothing else but either in telling or in hearing something new." And notwithstanding all their inquiries after truth, their disputations, and philosophic discussions, the feeling of the multitude was, that there were some religious truths beyond their reach, and some fundamental principles which history had not touched, and of which the wise men said nothing. That this was the impression is sufficiently evinced by the fact related in the Sacred Scripture, that there was at Athens, an altar "on which was written, To the Unknown God."3 Might not Christianity be the undiscovered mine of truth for which they sought? And might not the true God announced by the Apostle, be the being whom they 2 Acts xvii. 21. 3 Acts xvii. 23. 1 Acts xviii. 24-35. adored, though his attributes had been hitherto wrapped in mystery? A minute examination of the state of public morals and sentiment in Grecian society, at the period immediately preceding the first preaching of the Gospel, reveals two phases of character, one of which was opposed to Christianity, while the other might be almost said to be in its favour. The first was the moral depravity of the people. The second was the desire of novelty in religious and intellectual teaching, with the conviction that much truth was yet to be discovered. The first was a practical,-the second was a speculative element. The first was the carnal man,-the second was the intellectual man. Unfortunately in this world, immoral practice is stronger than moral theory; and in the creature, unsubdued, without grace or moral culture, the finest principles give way before the workings of passion. So it was in the Greek quarter of the Roman empire; a pure morality was beautiful in theory; a sublime theology was wanted; but the Gospel was too austere for men whose lives were tainted with every hue of vice,-sunk down to the bottom of an abyss, from which they contemplated the "Divine " as patron of the orgies of the debauched. § 2. Philosophy.-The philosophic spirit which pervaded civilized European society at the time of which we write, was another great bar to the diffusion of Christian truth. Five hundred years before the Christian era, the Greeks were far advanced in civilization, and that matured development of mind had taken place, in which systematical philosophy originated. Time passed on, and philosophy, arising out of the tenets of Pythagoras and Thales, diffused itself through the towns of Greece, and became localized in the Greek colonies of southern Italy, and principles originally simple, gave birth to many sects. On went the Grecian empire, domineering over the countries of Asia, and with it, Grecian philosophy, seizing on the minds of the vanquished. A philosophy had arisen in the East. The similarity of ends and objects became a |