with which they then penetrated into the human mind. The counterpart of
this state of things was exhibited after the destruction of the
empire. The Roman world being then as it were shattered into a thousand
fragments, each nation resumed its pristine individuality. An infinite
scale of ranks very soon grew up in the bosom of these nations; the
different races were more sharply defined, and each nation was divided
by castes into several peoples. In the midst of this common effort,
which seemed to be urging human society to the greatest conceivable
amount of voluntary subdivision, Christianity did not lose sight of
the leading general ideas which it had brought into the world. But it
appeared, nevertheless, to lend itself, as much as was possible, to
those new tendencies to which the fractional distribution of mankind
had given birth. Men continued to worship an only God, the Creator and
Preserver of all things; but every people, every city, and, so to speak,
every man, thought to obtain some distinct privilege, and win the favor
of an especial patron at the foot of the Throne of Grace. Unable
to subdivide the Deity, they multiplied and improperly enhanced the
importance of the divine agents. The homage due to saints and angels
became an almost idolatrous worship amongst the majority of the
Christian world; and apprehensions might be entertained for a moment
lest the religion of Christ should retrograde towards the superstitions
which it had subdued. It seems evident, that the more the barriers are
removed which separate nation from nation amongst mankind, and citizen
from citizen amongst a people, the stronger is the bent of the human
mind, as if by its own impulse, towards the idea of an only and
all-powerful Being, dispensing equal laws in the same manner to every
man. In democratic ages, then, it is more particularly important not
to allow the homage paid to secondary agents to be confounded with the
worship due to the Creator alone.

Another truth is no less clear--that religions ought to assume fewer
external observances in democratic periods than at any others. In
speaking of philosophical method among the Americans, I have shown that
nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than
the idea of subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient
of figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be the puerile artifice
which is used to conceal or to set off truths, which should more
natura