Though religion has been contemned, yet it cannot be denied that those forces which create abiding races and powerful empires are the very forces which have never been found to exist apart from the sanctions of religion. The development of the Roman Empire was profoundly influenced by its religion. To religion virtue owed its power, and from it patriotism drew its inspiration. And that religion claimed a supernatural origin--the source of its might was in the Unseen. When religion became a matter of public ridicule and the gods an 'object of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened,' and the philosophers 'concealed the sentiments of an atheist under their sacerdotal robes,' then the restraints of morality were flung aside and Rome went headlong to ruin. It was the same in Greece; {177} the same everywhere. All religions have issued their commands: 'And God spake all these words, saying...' And so long as men felt the supernatural behind the mandate, they trembled and obeyed; when behind the mandate they discerned only superstition, they surrendered to their base desires. Morality can only be based on the Divine. Its commands are operative when these commands are recognised as those of the Moral Governor of the universe. If these commands do not affect issues beyond the grave, if they have no sanction in the eternal order, then there is no value in obeying them, and no crime in disregarding them. Rather is there a merit in flouting them--the mere products of ignorance and superstition. To despise them and disregard them was the mark of an emancipated and superior mind! Thus it ever came that first the supernatural vanished and afterwards morality vanished. And thus has it been also in our day.