their schools to be informed what was good 86 or evil in their actions. All mankind, in"deed, under pain of displeasing the gods, "were to frequent their temples ; and every 66 one went to their sacrifices: but the priests "did not make it their business to teach the

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people virtue. If they were diligent in "their observations and ceremonies, punc"tual in their feasts and solemnities, and the "forms of religion, the priests assured them "the gods were pleased, and they looked no "further: lustrations and processions were "much easier than a clear conscience, and a steady course of virtue; and an expiatory "sacrifice, which they were taught atoned "for the want of these, was much more con“venient than a strict and holy life. Reli gion therefore with them was every where distinguished from and preferred to virtue; "and it was considered as profaneness, and "a dangerous heresy, to affirm and maintain "the contrary."

Lord Bacon likewise, speaking of unity in religion, observes, that the religion of the heathens consisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any settled or constant belief. Indeed, how could it be otherwise,

since the heathens had no knowledge of his laws *?

The heathen religion was not only devoid of charity, it was even malicious and revengeful: it did not preach," Be not over"come of evil, but overcome evil with good," nor, "Love your enemies;" on the contrary, Plato makes Socrates affirm, in the Philebus, that it is right to rejoice at such evils as befal them: and, as a still stronger proof of the vindictive spirit of their religion, Dr. Potter, in his Grecian Antiquities, mentions, that "whenever the Athenian priests implored a

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blessing on Athens and her allies, at the "same time they always denounced curses 66 on the whole Macedonian name and na❝tion, on its king in particular, and likewise

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on his kindred." These people had not the remotest conception that the real excellency of the human character consisted in its possessing the heavenly temper of charity towards man, as well as of holiness towards God for though it would be doing great injustice to many of the ancient philosophers, not to allow that they considered piety as one of the greatest excellencies in man, Py

* Psalm cxlvii.

thagoras and Plato extol it in the highest degree; and Cicero observes of it," in meo

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judicio pietas est omnium virtutum funda"mentum;" yet they certainly had no just idea of charity towards man, as it is explained by St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians; or of that commiseration or pity for the distresses of their fellow-creatures, devoid of which there can be but little if any excellency in the human character. This capital virtue was considered by them even as a weakness; and men of the most improved minds formally asserted it in their writings to be so. Cicero observes," Mise"ricordia est ægritudo animi ex alienis rebus "adversis:" and that he meant by the word

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ægritudo" an imperfection and weakness of mind, is proved from another passage, in which he particularly defines its meaning to be so; 66 Ægritudo est animi adversante ra“tione contractio." Seneca, in a still stronger manner, affirms, this; observing, that none but base tempers are susceptible of pity, and that it is the vice of a pusillanimous spirit; "Misericordiam omnes boni vitabunt, est “ enim vitium pusilli animi*." And what was the consequence of this savage state of mind?

* De Clement. lib. ii.

why, that when their emperors ascended the throne, the reigning emperor very frequently caused the adherents of his predecessor to be murdered: from whence such bloody scenes ensued, that, as has been before observed, out of fifty-seven successive emperors, from Julius Cæsar to Augustulus, all but nineteen died a violent death. It was owing to the general prevalence of this inhumanity, that women, much more savage than brutes, exposed their children to death in the public roads; and a variety of similar instances of cruelty flowed from this unfeeling source, particularly detailed in a late elegant and instructive publication, "On the Beneficial "Effects of Christianity," by the present Bishop of London.

Whilst the minds of all ranks of men were polluted by such false and cruel sentiments, it is impossible to imagine the heathen philosophers ever taught or inculcated benevolence and good-will to mankind as an obligatory duty; nor did they; for, instead of those numerous charitable institutions which, from the doctrines of Christianity, have been every where established for the relief of human misery, both mental and corporeal, we never read of an hospital, or any such esta

blishment, made at Athens, and only of one, by a lady, in Rome, prior to the promulgation of the doctrines of Jesus Christ. The extreme misery and slavery the heathen mind was subject to from superstition was indeed shocking. Plutarch, in his life of the Athenian general Nicias, proves, that his superstition respecting an eclipse of the moon, at the siege of Syracuse, was the cause not only of the death of many thousand brave soldiers and sailors, but it was eventually one of the chief and most fundamental causes of the final overthrow of the Athenian republic; for it never could recover the fatal effects it experienced from the defeat of Nicias. Such likewise was the dread of the Romans, even at the common phænomenon of thunder, that it was considered as a sufficient reason to suspend all public business and meetings: accordingly Pompey, wishing once to dissolve a public meeting, did so, on pretence that it thundered, though in reality it did not. But those who may be desirous of knowing a variety of instances of the excessive superstition of the Greeks and Romans, which cannot with propriety be inserted in a treatise of this kind, will find in Potter's Greek and Ken