'Hellenism, Fronto, is disgraced, and its very life threatened by the vices of her chief ministers. The gods forgive me! in that, while I have purged my legions of drunkards and adulterers, I have left them in the temples. Truly did you say, I have had but one thought in my mind, I have looked but to one quarter of the heavens. My eyes are now unsealed, and I see both ways, and every way. How can we look for the favor of the gods, while their houses of worship, I speak it, Fronto, with sorrow and indignation, but with the knowledge too of the truth of what I say, are houses of appointment while the very inner sanctuaries, and the altars themselves, are little better than the common stews, while the priests are the great fathers of iniquity, corrupters of innocence, the seducers of youth, examples themselves, beyond the fear of rivalry, of all the vice they teach! At their tables, too, who so swollen with meats and drink as the priests? Who, but they, are a by-word, throughout the city, for all that is vilest? What word but priest, stands, with all, as an abbreviation and epitome, of whatever pollutes, and defiles the name of man? Porphyrius says 'that since Jesus has been worshipped in Rome no one has found by experience the public assistance of the gods.' I believe it; and Rome will never again experience it till this black atheism is rooted out. But it is as true, I doubt not, that since their ministers have become ministers of demons, and, from teachers of morals, have turned instructers in vice--for this reason too, as well as for the other, the justly offended deities of Rome have hid themselves from their impious worshippers. Here then, Fronto, is a double labor to be undergone, a double duty to be done, not less than some or all of the labors of Hercules. We are set for this work, and, not till I have begun it--if not finished--will I so much as dream of Persia. What say you?' Fronto looked like one who had kindled a larger flame than he intended, or knew well how to manage. 'The faults of which you speak, great Emperor, it can be denied by none, are found in Rome, and can never be other than displeasing to the gods. But then, I would ask, when was it ever otherwise? In the earlier ages of the republic, I grant, there was a virtue in the people which we see not now. But that grew not out of the purer administration of religion, but was the product of the times in part--times, in comparison with these, of a primeval simplicity. To live well, was easier then. Where no temptation is, virtue is easy, is necessary. But then it ceases to be virtue. It is a quality, not an acquisition--a gift of the gods, an accident, rather than man's meritorious work.' 'That is very true--well.' 'There may be as much real virtue now, as then. May it not be so?' 'Perhaps--it may. What then?'