ly pronounce this monstrous judgment:--"Those who
persisted in declaring themselves Christians, I ordered to be led away
to punishment, (i. e. to execution,) for I DID NOT DOUBT, whatever it
was that they confessed, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought
to be punished." His master Trajan, a mild and accomplished prince,
went, nevertheless, no further in his sentiments of moderation and
equity than what appears in the following rescript:--"The Christians are
not to be sought for; but if any are brought before you, and convicted,
they are to be punished." And this direction he gives, after it had been
reported to him by his own president, that, by the most strict
examination, nothing could be discovered in the principles of these
persons, but "a bad and excessive superstition," accompanied, it seems,
with an oath or mutual federation, "to allow themselves in no crime or
immoral conduct whatever." The truth is, the ancient heathens considered
religion entirely as an affair of state, as much under the tuition of
the magistrate as any other part of the police. The religion of that age
was not merely allied to the state; it was incorporated into it. Many of
its offices were administered by the magistrate. Its titles of pontiffs,
augurs, and flamens, were borne by senators, consuls, and generals.
Without discussing, therefore, the truth of the theology, they resented
every affront put upon the established worship, as a direct opposition
to the authority of government.

Add to which, that the religious systems of those times, however ill
supported by evidence, had been long established. The ancient religion
of a country has always many votaries, and sometimes not the fewer,
because its origin is hidden in remoteness and obscurity. Men have a
natural veneration for antiquity, especially in matters of religion.
What Tacitus says of the Jewish was more applicable to the heathen
establishment: "Hi ritus, quoquo modo inducti, antiquitate defenduntur."
It was also a splendid and sumptuous worship. It had its priesthood, its
endowments, its temples. Statuary, painting, architecture, and music,
contributed their effect to its ornament and magnificence. It abounded
in festival shows and solemnities, to which the common people are
greatly addicted, and which were of a nature to engage them much more
than anything of that sort among us. These things would retain great
numbers on its side by the fascination of spectacle and pomp, as