540 MODERN PAGANISM. 



a religion of the heart, and will elevate him to the 

 skies ; the virtues which were once for him mere 

 abstract terms, will become endowed with life, and 

 will hover round him like guardian angels, conversing 

 with him in his solitude, consoling him in his afflic- 

 tions, teaching him how to live, and how to die. But 

 this condition is not to be easily attained ; as the 

 saints and prophets were often forced to practise long 

 vigils and fastings and prayers before their ecstasies 

 would fall upon them and their visions would appear, 

 so Virtue in its purest and most exalted form can only 

 be acquired by means of severe and long continued 

 culture of the mind. Persons with feeble and untrained 

 intellects may live according to their conscience ; but 

 the conscience itself will be defective. To cultivate 

 the intellect is therefore a religious duty ; and when 

 this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion 

 which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted, 

 and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevi- 

 tably fall. 



We have written much about inventions and dis- 

 coveries and transformations of human nature which can- 

 not possibly take place for ages yet to come, because 

 we think it good that the bright though distant future 

 should be ever present in the eyes of man. But we 

 shall now consider the existing generation, and we shall 

 point out the work which must be accomplished, and in 

 which all enlightened men should take a part. Christi- 

 anity must be destroyed. The civilised world has out- 

 grown that religion, and is now in the condition of the 

 Roman Empire in the pagan days. A cold-hearted in- 

 fidelity above, a sordid superstition below, a school of 

 Plutarchs who endeavour to reconcile the fables of a 



