es to whom it was still, in
its various forms, a thing of power. You are to recollect that the
Roman empire was made up of many nations, each with a different mode
of religion, and to suppose that these different religions had ceased
to exercise the usual influence on vast multitudes of the people would
be mere delusion. If they were surrendered at last so easily, it could
only be because a great party--antagonistic to each--had been silently
forming in each nation, and undermining the power of the popular
superstitions. But, thirdly, if the representation were true, to
what can so singular a phenomenon--this simultaneous decay of different
religions, this epidemic pestilence amongst the gods of the Pantheon
--be ascribed, but to the previous influence of Christianity, and its
extensive conquests? And, fourthly, supposing this not the case, and
yet that the indifference in question existed, this indifference to
the old systems of religion would not presuppose equal indifference
to new, or induce the people to embrace them at the mere bidding of
their new master. If this were so, we ought to see the same phenomenon
repeated in the case of Julian. If, in their presumed indifference to
the old and the new, they listened to Constantine when he commanded
them to become Christians, why did not they manifest an equally
compliant temper when the Apostate enjoined them to become heathens,
and like Constantine, gave them both precept and example?

But look at the historic evidence on the subject long before the
establishment of Christianity. Is it possible for any candid person to
read the Epistle of Pliny to Trajan, and not see in that alone, after
making every deduction for any supposed bias under which the letter may
have been written (though, in fact, it is difficult to suppose any
bias that would not rather lead the writer to diminish the number of
the Christians than to exaggerate it),--is it possible, I say, to read
that singular state paper, and not feel that the new religion had
made prodigious progress in that remote province? and that, a fortiori,
if in Bithynia it had conquered its thousands of proselytes, in other
and more favored provinces it must have gained its tens of thousands?
To me the letter of Pliny speaks volumes; and if so much could be said
at so early a period as A. D. 107, what was the state of things two
centuries later?

Precisely the same conclusion must be arrived at if we consult the
uniform tone