xperience and aerial nature,
they were enabled to execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the
parts which they had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted
festivals and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were
frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by
the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every
preternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to admit the
most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But the belief of the
Christian was accompanied with horror. The most trifling mark of respect
to the national worship he considered as a direct homage yielded to the
daemon, and as an act of rebellion against the majesty of God.

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.--Part III.

In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous duty of
a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the practice
of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely a speculative
doctrine professed in the schools or preached in the temples. The
innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven
with every circumstance of business or pleasure, of public or of
private life; and it seemed impossible to escape the observance of them,
without, at the same time, renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all
the offices and amusements of society. The important transactions of
peace and war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which
the magistrate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged to preside
or to participate. The public spectacles were an essential part of the
cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were supposed to accept,
as the most grateful offering, the games that the prince and people
celebrated in honor of their peculiar festivals. The Christians, who
with pious horror avoided the abomination of the circus or the theatre,
found himself encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial
entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable
deities, poured out libations to each other's happiness. When the bride,
struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced into hymenaeal pomp
over the threshold of her new habitation, or when the sad procession of
the dead slowly moved towards the funeral pile; the Christian, on these
interesting occasions, was compelled to desert the persons who were the
dearest to him, rather than contract the guilt inherent to those impious