discoveries and philosophical criticism,
faith in the religion of the old days had been profoundly shaken. It
was, by this policy of Rome, brought to an end.

MONOTHEISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The kings of all the conquered provinces
had vanished; in their stead one emperor had come. The gods also had
disappeared. Considering the connection which in all ages has existed
between political and religious ideas, it was then not at all strange
that polytheism should manifest a tendency to pass into monotheism.
Accordingly, divine honors were paid at first to the deceased and at
length to the living emperor.

The facility with which gods were thus called into existence had a
powerful moral effect. The manufacture of a new one cast ridicule on
the origin of the old Incarnation in the East and apotheosis in the West
were fast filling Olympus with divinities. In the East, gods descended
from heaven, and were made incarnate in men; in the West, men ascended
from earth, and took their seat among the gods. It was not the
importation of Greek skepticism that made Rome skeptical. The excesses
of religion itself sapped the foundations of faith.

Not with equal rapidity did all classes of the population adopt
monotheistic views. The merchants and lawyers and soldiers, who by the
nature of their pursuits are more familiar with the vicissitudes of
life, and have larger intellectual views, were the first to be affected,
the land laborers and farmers the last.

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY When the empire in a military and political
sense had reached its culmination, in a religious and social aspect
it had attained its height of immorality. It had become thoroughly
epicurean; its maxim was, that life should be made a feast, that
virtue is only the seasoning of pleasure, and temperance the means of
prolonging it. Dining-rooms glittering with gold and incrusted with
gems, slaves in superb apparel, the fascinations of female society where
all the women were dissolute, magnificent baths, theatres, gladiators,
such were the objects of Roman desire. The conquerors of the world had
discovered that the only thing worth worshiping is Force. By it all
things might be secured, all that toil and trade had laboriously
obtained. The confiscation of goods and lands, the taxation of
provinces, were the reward of successful warfare; and the emperor
was the symbol of force. There was a social splendor, but it was the
phosphorescent corruption of the ancient M