heathen world, followed by a necessary law, whenever any brave, hardy, self-denying, and virtuous race of men, by the natural operation of these virtues, rose to empire, and attained wealth, and the means of luxury. The later Romans held up their own ancestors of early days as the brightest example of virtue. Among them the gods were honoured and worshipped, and the rules which had come down from their fathers were strictly observed. Men were frugal, laborious, content with little, valuing right and honour far above wealth and pleasure, and ever ready to suffer or die for their country; women were chaste, modest, retiring, preferring their honour to their life. That the men and women of their own day were in all respects the opposite, was self-evident; but it is to be observed, that they were so far from considering this to be any special fault or misery of Rome, that even those who most bitterly complained of the change were wont to boast that no other nation had so long resisted the universal law, by which wealth generated luxury, and luxury the desire of increased gain; and this again made money, not honour and virtue, the national standard of right and wrong, until at last, things getting ever worse and worse, society itself was dissolved, and the national life perished. This they considered to be the natural, nay inevitable course of things.[8] This was a melancholy view of human affairs, but it seems certain that with regard to a heathen state (and they knew of no other) it was true. For to take the case of Rome itself, what sanction was there even in the purest times of the Republic for those rules of right and wrong--those great moral principles, which to a very considerable extent were actually preserved; although, no doubt, men in later times dreamed of a golden age which had never really existed. The only religion they knew was silent about moral virtues. It taught men to honour and worship the gods of their fathers, and to ask and hope from them such worldly blessings as long life, health, &c. But that a man of moral purity, justice, and mercy was a more acceptable worshipper than one who was impure, unjust, and cruel, they never imagined, and indeed, as long as they in any degree believed the traditions which they had received as to the character of the gods they worshipped, it was simply impossible that they should imagine it. There was nothing contrary to the national religion, however men's consciences might tell them that there was something immoral, in the prayer which Horace attributes to one of his contemporaries--'Grant that I may succeed in wearing a mask, that I may be supposed to be just and good. Throw a cloud and darkness over my cheats and frauds.'