These testimonies concerning the influence of idolatrous worship, and the character of the idols worshipped, are maintained by authorities which render doubt in relation to their credibility impossible. Upon this subject the wiser men among the Greeks and Romans have borne unequivocal testimony. Plato, in the second book of the Republic, speaks of the pernicious influence of the conduct attributed to the gods, and suggests that such histories should not be rehearsed in public, lest they should influence the youth to the commission of crimes. Aristotle advises that statues and paintings of the gods should exhibit no indecent scenes, except in the temples of such divinities as, according to common opinion, preside over sensuality.[1] What an affecting testimony of the most discriminating mind among the heathen, asserting not only the turpitude of the prevailing idolatry, but sanctioning the sensuality of their debauched worship! [1] Aristot. Politica, vii. 18, ed. Schneider. As Rome and Greece grew older, the infection of idolatry festered, until the body politic became one mass of moral disease. The state of things, in the later ages of these nations, is well stated by a late writer of the first authority.[2] 'We should naturally suppose,' says this writer, 'that among so great a variety of gods, of religious actions, of sacred vows, at least some better feeling of the heart must have been excited; that at least some truly pious sentiment would have been awakened. But when we consider the character of this superstition, and the testimony of contemporaneous writers, such does not appear to have been the fact. Petronius' history of that period furnishes evidence that temples were frequented, altars crowned, and prayers offered to the gods, in order that they might render nights of unnatural lust agreeable; that they might favour acts of poisoning; that they might cause robberies and other crimes to prosper.' In view of the abominations prevailing at this period, the moral Seneca exclaimed--'How great now is the madness of men! they lisp the most abominable prayers; and if a man is found listening they are silent. What a man ought not to hear, they do not blush to relate to the gods.' Again, says he, 'If any one considers what things they do, and to what things they subject themselves, instead of decency he will find indecency; instead of the honourable, the unworthy; instead of the rational, the insane.' Such was heathenism and its influence in the most enlightened ages, according to the testimony of the best men of those times. [2] Tholuck on the Influence of Heathenism.