d involved
such bloodshed, had passed away; but the peace which followed was,
rather the quietude of exhaustion, than the repose of contentment.

The state of the Roman Empire about the time of the birth of Christ
abundantly proves that there is no necessary connexion between
intellectual refinement and social regeneration. The cultivation of the
arts and sciences in the reign of Augustus may have been beneficial to a
few, by diverting them from the pursuit of vulgar pleasures, and opening
up to them sources of more rational enjoyment; but it is a most
humiliating fact that, during the brightest period in the history of
Roman literature, vice in every form was fast gaining ground among
almost all classes of the population. The Greeks, though occupying a
higher position as to mental accomplishments, were still more dissolute
than the Latins. Among them literature and sensuality appeared in
revolting combination, for their courtesans were their only females who
attended to the culture of the intellect. [7:1]

Nor is it strange that the Roman Empire at this period exhibited such a
scene of moral pollution. There was nothing in either the philosophy or
the religion of heathenism sufficient to counteract the influence of
man's native depravity. In many instances the speculations of the pagan
sages had a tendency, rather to weaken, than to sustain, the authority
of conscience. After unsettling the foundations of the ancient
superstition, the mind was left in doubt and bewilderment; for the
votaries of what was called wisdom entertained widely different views
even of its elementary principles. The Epicureans, who formed a large
section of the intellectual aristocracy, denied the doctrine of
Providence, and pronounced pleasure to be the ultimate end of man. The
Academics encouraged a spirit of disputatious scepticism; and the
Stoics, who taught that the practice of, what they rather vaguely
designated, virtue, involves its own reward, discarded the idea of a
future retribution. Plato had still a goodly number of disciples; and
though his doctrines, containing not a few elements of sublimity and
beauty, exercised a better influence, it must be admitted, after all,
that they constituted a most unsatisfactory system of cold and barren
mysticism. The ancient philosophers delivered many excellent moral
precepts; but, as they wanted the light of revelation, their arguments
in support of duty were essentially defective, and the lesso