19,000 men, exclusive of women and children, are said to have perished for their religion; and, later on, 10,000 more were massacred for the same cause at Antandrus in Phrygia. Never before or since was such a spectacle beheld as when Maximianus, marching against the barbarians, halted his forces at Geneva and commanded the Theban Legion-over 6,000 strong-to sacrifice to the gods. Every one of them was a tried veteran and a true believer. "We fight the enemy, but Christians we remain!" was their reply. To a man were they hewn down by their fellowsoldiers, slain unresistingly for the faith that was in them.

Peace and victory came at last. The lust for human blood began to pall, and the sublime heroism of patient suffering extorted admiration from the tired hands of the persecuting crowd. Rome commenced to look aghast at the carnage of its making: ten times had it ordered every province of the vast empire to flow with loyal blood; and still it seemed as if it was but sowing dragons' teeth, since for every martyr there sprang a hundred converts ready, almost anxious, to take his place and share his fate. Statesmen began to speculate on the possible and probable: barbarians were threatening the Empire from the north and east, and scarce a year passed by without new Caesars starting up in each most powerful province. What if the Christians, goaded by persecution, should throw in their lot with either the foreign enemy or the domestic foe? The prospect was not pleasing; and visions of a Rome deluged with blood, and that not Christian blood, floated before the mind. Added to all these inhibitory incentives was the fierce light of truth reflected from the writings -"apologies," as they were called-of men like Aristides, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and others, who vigorously maintained the civil and religious rights of Christians, refuted the subtle charges and objections of sceptical philosophers, and cleared away the lies and gross misconceptions that had obfuscated and exasperated the masses of the people.

With Constantine came peace from persecution, and the decay of Paganism. Constantine, a most worldly wise if not the best of rulers, did not dare to stir up the smoldering embers of Paganism during his long reign of thirty-one years; not till he had done away with all competitors and become sole emperor did he openly profess the true faith; and not till he was on his death-bed, according to some authorities, did he deem it wise to be baptized. His sons and successors were by no means shining

lights of religion or of morals, and exhibited the prudence of their sire by persecuting the Pagans for their wealth, and conciliating them by upholding Arianism against orthodoxy. With Julian came a spasmodic revival of the Olympian gods, their ceremonials, and their worship; but their doom was sealed, and the apostate must have had a vision of the future when, dying on the plains, he cried to heaven, "Thou hast conquered, Galilean!"

Greek Paganism was dead. For upwards of twenty centuries had it ruled two mighty nations, guided their people, influenced their laws, shaped their morals, and led their armies to the scene of war. It seemed a religion for all time; but when Zeus beheld "the Star of the East," the star which the Magi saw and followed to Bethlehem, he bethought him of the dark prophecy of Prometheus, and felt that his day was running short. Not without a struggle did he yield. For two hundred and fifty years he fought the fight, and wielded for ruthless destruction the thunders and lightnings at his beck; for another fifty years. he tried expediency, temporizing, and heretical dissensions; baffled at every point, he made one final effort, discarded all half measures, flung once more the eagle to the breeze, and died with Julian on the field of battle.

CHAPTER II.

WAS PAGANISM THE RELIGION OF THE CULTURED?

It is generally conceded that religion, even the faith that men profess, is regarded in a different light by the many and by the few; to the former, belief supplies the want of knowledge, the lack of inquiry, and the strong desire that would interfere with worldly pursuits and gain; to the latter, religion is a problem that must be solved in some way before they can find rest. If in these our days we find some who, in the light of Christianity and its Divine founder, still declare the problem to be insolvable, or indeterminate, or negatively determinate, or positively solvable, ought we to feel surprised to find a few men in Pagan days searching for the solution of the same problem? This surprise is lessened according as we study the nature of the problem, its conditions, and the intelligence brought to bear upon its solution.

"The tie that binds" is not one peculiar to any race or century; it is part and parcel of the human being, as much so as the life within him, or the reason given to him, or the natural cravings for subsistence and for light. "Among all men," says Xenophon, "it is customary from the first to pay reverence to the gods"; and the same sentiment is repeated more distinctively by Cicero, "Of all animals there is none save man that has any knowledge of God: and among men themselves there is no race so uncivilized or savage that does not recognize the necessity for this knowledge, even though it be ignorant of the true nature of God. The inference is that whosoever has any cognizance or knowledge of his own being must acknowledge God."

As for the comparative conditions of the problem then and now, they are in proportion to the relative merits of Paganism and Christianity. No thinker of the ordinary or most advanced type, Christian or otherwise, can be found in our day prepared or willing to claim preference for the former; if pressed for his reasons, he would probably say that belief in Pagan gods was an insult to intelligence; and the veriest sceptic would admit that if there were a God at all, He should be one. Were there no acute minds in ancient Greece and Rome to feel insulted by polytheism?

No thinkers? No men of intellect? Who then conceived and transferred the Iliad, Theogony, and tragedies to parchment? Or the Olympian Zeus and Cnidian Aphrodite to gold, ivory, and marble? Or the Venus Anadyomene to canvass? Or the sublime and silent earnestness of architecture to stone? Whose names are synonyms for geometry, inductive reasoning, and logic? Who thought out the problem of being, probed it to the quick, and discussed it in every possible mode and form? Who formulated the fundamentals of astronomy, geodesy, geology, zoology, music, light, heat, sound, and countless other branches of knowledge requiring deep reflection, the closest reasoning, and indefatigable research? If the answer be-as it must be, "the Greeks," does it seem reasonable, then, to infer that, while pondering over every subject, they neglected religion; that, while tracing each branch to its beginning, they left the pantheon as it was; that, while refusing to believe in anything which was not dialectically true, they swallowed polytheism with all its manifest incongruities and absurdities? To accept such inferences, from this point of view, is certainly more difficult than to deny them. To accept them at all, we must fall back on certain alleged errors of omission and commission, such as (1) specific neglect in mentioning a One Supreme Being, and (2) professed regard and esteem for the gods of the pantheon.

That the first charge is without foundation can be shown best by going back to the musty past of time, and quoting the expressions handed down from age to age:

"I am the all that was, and is, and will be.”—Inscription on an ancient temple at Saïs.

"One is the self-begotten; all things derived from this same One were created; no other is there save the Almighty King."-Orpheus.

"Easily can God, when willing and far off, save man.' Homer (Odyss. III:231).

"God hears us ever from afar."-Aeschylus (Eumenid. 297).

"If the doer hopes to deceive God in any way, he is mistaken."-Pindar (Olymp. I: 102).

"For God, if He is really God, is all-sufficient in Himself."-Euripides (Her. Fur. 1345).

"The Godhead is so great and of such a nature as to see and hear all things, to be present everywhere, and to attend to all things at once."-Xenophon (Memorab. 1: 4).

"He who arranges and maintains the entire universe, in which all things are beautiful and good, and whole and sound in their constituent parts, and who keeps it imperishable and accurately performing its functions quicker than thought,-He, in the doing of those mighty works, is seen by us, but in the ordering of them is unseen."-Xenophon (Memorab. iv: 3).

"In word and deed, then, God is all that is absolutely one and true."-Plato (Repub. II: 21).

"God extends from eternity to eternity.”—Aristotle (Strobaeus, Eclog. Phys. I:86).

"God is blessed and happy from nothing external, but Himself from Himself."-Aristotle (De Repub. vii: 1).

"It is proper to ponder over these things with regard to God, who is verily the perfection of power, existence and goodness."-Aristotle (De Mundo, 6).

"Tell me what thou understandest by God? The One who sees all things, and is Himself unseen."—Philemon.

"All places are a temple for the Divine Word; for the mind it is that converses with God."-Menander (Arreph. 6). "There is verily a God who hears and sees whate'er we do."-Plautus (Capt. II: 2.63).

"Nothing is superior to God; by Him, then, must the world be ruled. To nought of nature, then, is God obedient or subject; therefore, He rules all nature."-Cicero (Nat. Deor. II: 30).

"God looks not at full hands, but at pure ones."Publius Syrus.

There is, surely, no uncertain ring about these declarations, no atheistical blasphemies, no sceptical euphemisms, no philosophical materialism or naturalism! Believing, then, in One God, they could not be polytheists; and believing in a God who was wisdom, truth, goodness, all-sufficient in Himself, and from eternity to eternity, it would be insulting to their intelligence to pin their faith on a Zeus, Apollo, or any other of the pantheon who was notably credited with a beginning as to existence, with cravings for external objects, and with numerous frailties reflecting on morality, veracity, and prescience.

Neither in Greece nor Rome was there any interdict placed upon a belief in a Supreme Being; and while to the multitude He represented an unknown god, and to the educated sceptic but another god, there was always a certain number of the literati