"Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe."-Byron.

Ring and and almost every river, mountain and stream was was personified as a goddess, whose image often appeared upon

symbolized as a god, of whom some fabulous tale was related. Roma was honored by the Romans from the time of the emperor Hadrian, (A. D., 117,) with temples, sacrifices, and annual festivals. The above engraving, from a painting formerly belonging to the Barberini family, is probably a correct representation of the goddess.

This Pagan conceit of peopling groves, rivers and forests with a community of gods and goddesses is not generally endorsed at the present day, for the human mind is slowly progressing beyond the realms of myth and fable; but many religionists still credit these ancient tales, and firmly believe in the reality of immaterial forms and material spirits. Like the old Roman idolaters, they claim guardian angels by whom they are protected, and fear evil spirits by whom they are tormented. The N. Y. Catholic Review of Oct. 22, 1881, says: "What a beautiful devotion is that of the angels, especially the guardian "angels. And what doctrine is more clearly revealed in Holy Scripture than that of our intimate relations to the angels and their ministration "to men in the affairs of this world? The Old and New Testaments are both full of the most striking instances of the ministry of angels. Ac"cording to St. Augustine, the blessed spirits preside over every animate 'and inanimate thing in the visible world. The stars and the firm"ament have their angels. The fire, the air and the water have their "angels, kingdoms have their angels, as is seen in the Scriptures. Towns "and cities have their angels; altars, churches, even particular families

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"have their angels.' 'Thus,' as Mr. Boudon says, 'the world is full of angels "and it seems that the sweetness of Divine Providence renders it necessary;

'for if, as some say, there be in the air so great a number of evil spirits that if "they were permitted to assume bodies they would obscure the light of the sun, "how could men be safe from their malicious acts unless protected by angels?'

Such implicit faith in the angelic hierarchy was never excelled by "heathen " idolaters; and the almost forgotten fauns and fairies- the demons, genii, and sprites of ancient Paganism-correspond to the guardian angels and evil spirits of modern Catholicism. Dr. Newman quotes from Peril of Idolatry as follows:

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"Terentius Varro showeth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time: "there were no fewer Veneres and Dianæ : we had no fewer Christophers, Mary Magdalens, and other saints. Enomaus and Hesiodus show that in their time there were thirty thousand gods. I think we had no fewer saints, to whom we gave the honor due to God. And they have not only spoiled the true living God of His due honor by such devices as the Gentile idolaters have done before "them, but the sea and waters have as well special saints with them, as the Gen"tiles had the gods Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor and Pollux, Venus, and such "other: in whose places become St. Christopher, St. Clement, and divers other, "and specially our Lady, to whom shipmen sing, 'Ave maris stella.' Neither hath "the fire escaped their idolatrous inventions. For, instead of Vulcan and Vesta, "the Gentiles' gods of the fire, our men have placed St. Agatha, and make litters on her day to quench fire with. Every artificer and profession hath his special "saint, as a peculiar god. As for example, scholars have St. Nicholas and St. "Gregory; painters, St. Luke; neither lack soldiers their Mars, nor lovers their "Venus amongst Christians."

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"Catholicism," says Ingersoll, "administered on the estate of Paganism, and "appropriated most of the property to its own use." This fact may satisfactorily explain the remarkable resemblance between the faith of the Romish Church and the belief of Pagan Rome-between the mythology of the past and the theology of the present.

"

"The religion of Christ" says Eusebe Salverte, "succeeded a religion rich in pomp and emblems; and it feared to repulse by too rigid a simplicity, men accustomed to see and to touch what they believed in and worshiped. Hence, as "it was difficult to destroy and utterly to proscribe the former objects of veneration, the Christians often preferred appropriating them to their own faith. "More than one temple was changed into a church; more than the name of one god was honored as the name of a saint; and an immense number of images "and legends passed without difficulty into the new faith, and were preserved by the ancient respect of the new believers."-Philosophy of Magic, vol. ii, p. 249. "Paganism," says Emilio Castelar, "has been transformed, but has not been destroyed. The months of the year and the days of the week preserve the num"bers of the ancient divinities, of the ancient Cæsars, of the ancient Roman numeration. The two solstices of summer and winter we still celebrate with "festivals analogous to the classic festivals. Adonis is born, dies, rises again, "when the corn is sown, shoots, or is in ear. The feast of Candlemas, dedicated "with many tapers to the Virgin, like the festivals of Lupercal, is consecrated to light. The Romans wave torches under the government of the Popes, just as the Pagans waved them under the dominion of the Cæsars, and chanted 'hymns to the light, which have changed their form, but the essence of which "is unaltered."- Old Rome and New Italy, p. 170.

"

"When we see," says Dr. Inman, "the same ideas promulgated as divine truth on the ancient banks of the Ganges, and the modern shores of the Mediterranean, we are constrained to admit that they have something common in their source;" " and when we observe the accordance and harmony between ancient and modern myths and mysteries, we readily perceive how little originality our modern faith contains; for there is not a rite, ceremony or belief we now practice or profess, that cannot be traced to its origin in Chaldean idolatry—in Assyrian, Egyptian or Roman Mythology.

The significant command given by Jehovah to the Jews: "Take heed that "thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their 'gods?" (Deut. xii, 30,) should be literally observed by Christians, if they wish

to maintain their cherished faith unaltered and unimproved by intelligent doubt and scientific investigation.-E.

Τ

1.

UNIVERSAL SPIRIT OF TOLERATION.†

HE firm edifice of Roman power was raised and preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated authority; but the general principle of government was wise, simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors.

Spirit of

toleration.

The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The

*ROMULUS and REMUS, the founders of Rome, were the sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars. Silvia was the daughter of Numitor and a vestal virgin. For violating her vows of chastity she and her twin offspring were condemned to be drowned in the Tiber. The cradle in which the children were exposed being stranded, they were found and suckled by a she-wolf, which carried them to her den, where they were ultimately discovered by Faustalus, the king's shepherd.-E.

+From Chap. II. of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In addition to the full notes of Gibbon the notes of Milman, Wenck, Guizot, and the "English Churchman," (Editor of Bohn's Edition of Gibbon's Rome,) are also given in full, to enable the reader to judge of the merit of all the arguments advanced. They will sometimes be found to differ with Mr. Gibbon, and not unfrequently with each other. The notes added by the publisher are signed "E." (97)

various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

The superstition of the people was not embitOf the People-tered by any mixture of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth.' Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, per

1 There is not any writer who describes, in so lively a manner as Herodotus, the true genius of polytheis u. The best commentary may be found in Mr. Hume's Natural History of Religion; and the best contrast in Bossuet's Universal History. Some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct of the Egyptians (see Juvenal, Sat. 15), and the Christians, as well as Jews, who lived under the Roman empire, formed a very important exception; so important, indeed, that the discussion will require a distinct chapter of this work.*

* M. Constant in his very learned and eloquent work, "Sur la Religion," with two additional volumes, "Du Polytheisme Romain," has considered the whole history of polytheism in a tone of philosophy, which, without subscribing to all his opinions, we may be permitted to admire. The boasted tolerance of polytheism did not rest upon the respect due from society to the freedom of individual opinion. The polytheistic nations, tolerant as they were towards each other, as separate states, were not the less ignorant of the eternal principle, the only basis of enlightened toleration, that every one has a right to worship God in the manner which seems to him the best. Citizens, on the contrary, were bound to conform to the religion of the state; they had not the liberty to adopt a foreign religion, though that religion might be legally recognized in their own city, for the strangers who were its votaries."-Sur la Religion, v. 184. Du Polyth. Rom. iii, 308. At this time, the growing religious indifference, and the general administration of the empire by Romans, who, being strangers, would do no more than protect, not enlist themselves in the cause of the local superstitions, had introduced great laxity. But intolerance was clearly the theory both of the Greek and Roman law. The subject is more fully considered in another place. - MILMAN.†

Milman admits the tolerance of the Romans for the religion of the nations they conquered, yet he asserts that intolerance was the theory of the Greek and Roman law. He cites no proof in support of his assertion, and gives no names of persons who were punished for forsaking the religion of their fathers. When the emperor Julian re-established the Pagan religion, he did not persecute his Christian subjects, but tolerated their religion, although its most eminent professers had murdered his nearest relatives. The Inquisition, the logical result of intolerance, was established by Christians, not by Pagans. On Nov. 14, 1881, Señor Castelar delivered at Madrid, in the Cortes, an eloquent and impressive address. He adjured the government of Spain to assist Italy in upholding the separation of the temporal from the spiritual power. He approved the recent circular of the Minister of Public Instruction, authorizing the appointment of free-thinkers to professional chairs, and he also approved the principles of self-government in the Universities, and recognition of the rights of science. Science and learning," said he, must be free from State and Church tyranny. Learned men must soar freely in pursuit of truth, be"yond the reach of fanaticism and despotism." Thus we see advocated in the most Catholic nation of Christendom, a return to the principles of free toleration, practiced two thousand years ago by the old Pagans of Rome. - E.

"

Was there no mixture of religious persecution, in the oppressions which drove the Israelites out of Egypt?-ENG, CHURCHMAN.

The Israelites were enslaved, and naturally desired freedom. They were not driven out of Egypt, but ran away; and the Egyptians used every effort to recover their lost "chattels." - E.

petually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was universally confessed that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed in peace their local and respective influence; nor could the Roman who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements, were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an eternal parent, and an omnipotent monarch. Such was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded themselves, that under various names, and with various ceremonies, they adored the same deities. The

2 The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign of Olympus are very clearly described in the fifteenth book of the Iliad; in the Greek original, I mean; for Mr. Pope, without perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer.*

See, for instance, Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi, 17. Within a century or two, the Gauls themselves applied to their gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, &c.† * The conception of an eternal and almighty Godhead, overruling all others, was not gradually introduced as knowledge advanced or flattery suggested. It was rather the early fundamental principle of natural and revealed religion, which polytheism could not entirely suppress. Compare “ Pfanneri Systema Theologic Gentilis Purioris," cap. 2, 11, 13.-WENCK.

There is a curious coincidence between Gibbon's explanation and those of the newly recovered De Republica of Cicero, though the argument is rather the converse, lib. i. c. 36. "Sive hæc ad utilitatem vitæ constituta sint a principibus rerum publicarum, ut rex putaretur unus esse in cœlo, qui nutu, ut ait Homerus, "totum Olympum converteret, idemque et rex et pater haberetur omnium."-M.

The barbarian did not of his own accord believe this. To render their conquered foes more docile the Romans, like the Greeks before them, persuaded

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