een tolerated as a
mere civil institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors
were under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was
sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers, though
frequently worn as a symbol of joy or mourning, had been dedicated
in their first origin to the service of superstition. The trembling
Christians, who were persuaded in this instance to comply with the
fashion of their country, and the commands of the magistrate, labored
under the most gloomy apprehensions, from the reproaches of his own
conscience, the censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine
vengeance.

Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the chastity
of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry. The superstitious
observances of public or private rites were carelessly practised, from
education and habit, by the followers of the established religion. But
as often as they occurred, they afforded the Christians an opportunity
of declaring and confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent
protestations their attachment to the faith was continually fortified;
and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they combated with the more
ardor and success in the holy war, which they had undertaken against the
empire of the demons.

II. The writings of Cicero represent in the most lively colors the
ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers
with regard to the immortality of the soul. When they are desirous of
arming their disciples against the fear of death, they inculcate, as
an obvious, though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our
dissolution releases us from the calamities of life; and that those can
no longer suffer, who no longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of
Greece and Rome who had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects,
a juster idea of human nature, though it must be confessed, that in
the sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their
imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by their
vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental
powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of
fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most
important labors, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which
transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of
the grave, they were unwilling t