ROMANISM. 



59 



not express the detestation in which 

 they should be held, should they 

 totally disbelieve what they profess 

 " speaking lies in hypocrisy" 

 especially when they undertake to 

 pardon sins against the Creator. 



The power or influence possessed 

 by the priests of Rome resembles, 

 firstly and generally, that exercised 

 by those of old Paganism, as well as 

 any other human religion that exists, 

 or has ever existed. It has been 

 infinitely increased by the terrors of 

 death and the invisible world, in an 

 especial degree peculiar to Chris- 

 tianity, the keys of which the priests 

 say they hold. This claim the de- 

 votees so absolutely believe in, that 

 their constant thoughts are to have 

 a priest before the breath leaves 

 their bodies, to insure them ulti- 

 mately, as they think, a place in 

 heaven, however severe or long the 

 pains of purgatory ; and that masses 

 shall be paid for to release their 

 , souls from the intermediate state, 

 and pass them to their final resting 

 place. The ancient religions laid 

 claim to no such power ; they had 

 not even any definite ideas regard- 

 ing a future state, although it was 

 believed in, in a general way, with 

 many crude superstitions connected 

 with it. Nor did their priests 

 trouble themselves much, if any- 

 thing, with the consciences of men ; 

 all that they demanded was that the 

 temples should be attended, and the 

 gods worshipped, according to 

 established ritual, which contained 

 no doctrinal system involving hap- 

 piness or misery in a future state, 

 based on historical or revealed 

 truths, but sacrifices, prayers and 

 spectacles, and ceremonies that ex- 

 tended to the minutest detail of 

 public, social, and private life ; and 



fave such freedom, or variety, to 

 umanity that it could invoke a 

 deity for every place or object, want 

 or occasion, faculty, feeling, or pas- 

 sion, virtue, or even vice, to which it 

 was subject. Such a religion 

 rested on ritual observance and the 



authority of the priests, and ancient 

 tradition, that is, on legend and im- 

 memorial usage. On that it was 

 that Cicero made his characters 

 say, " I must believe the religion of 

 our ancestors without any proof," 

 and, " It is the part of a wise man 

 to uphold the religious institutions 

 of our ancestors, by the mainten- 

 ance of their rites and ceremonies ;" 

 to publicly deny which endangered 

 the person at the hands of the peo- 

 ple, no less than the priests, whose 

 only care was that the gods should 1 , 

 be worshipped, according to law, 

 with all that that implied. Paganism 

 would tolerate any kind of thought 

 or conduct that submitted to its 

 authority, and attended the temples, 

 but persecuted everything that im- 

 pugned it ; and would not molest 

 other religions, or forms of worship, 

 becoming established by law, that 

 admitted their worship, however 

 much they mfght differ ; such being 

 the religious genius of the ancient 

 world, expressed by the phrase, 

 "intercommunity of gods."* And 

 so pleasantly did that religion 

 generally present itself to the peo- 

 ple, that Plutarch, who was priest at 

 Chaeronea, remarked: "What we 

 esteem the most agreeable things in 

 human life are our holidays, temple- 

 feasts,, initiatings, processionings, 

 with our public prayers and solemn 

 devotions." 



On what other basis does Ro- 

 manism practically rest than the 

 old Pagan one, even including to a 

 great extent the intercommunity of 



* " For individuals to worship private 

 gods, or new gods, or strange gods, would 

 introduce a confusion of religions, and 

 all kinds of unknown ceremonies. This 

 is not the way in which gods accepted by 

 the priests and by the Senate should be 

 worshipped, even if they approved of 

 such regulations" (Cicero on the Laws, by 

 Younge, p. 439). " The rights of ances- 

 tors are likewise to be preserved in their 

 families, for since the ancients approach- 

 ed nearest to the gods, that religion 

 which the gods handed down to them is 

 a tradition most worthy of memorial '' (p. 

 440). 



