Early failure of the vital forces, followed by disease and its accompanying physical and mental suffering, was the fruitful result. A participation in the revels of the temples of Venus and of Bacchus might give its few brief hours of sensual pleasure; but violated nature always inflicted her bitter penalties therefore, in the form of painful and tedious morbid reactions. The spectator at the Colosseum may have been momentarily excited by the bloody scenes of the arena; but the simple instincts of humanity must have filled the soul with horror and disgust, on subsequent reflection upon the cruelty involved therein. Even in the higher planes of pagan life, in the very lyceums and groves of the philosophers of the Augustan age, so lax and inefficient was the moral code of the day, and such their own imperfect moral teachings, that the practical life-results were little better. One can appreciate the reality of this when he calls to mind the utter variance of the new law of Christ, when first introduced among them, with nearly all the philosophies, customs, and habits of the period. He has but to read, for this purpose, the frightful description of ancient heathen society given by St. Paul in the latter half of the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, addressed to the Christian converts from among this very people. Without the restraining and healthful influences of true religion, to what depths of moral and physical degradation is not human nature capable of bringing itself! [Footnote 20] "Professing themselves to be wise," says the apostle, "they became fools. ... Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness, to shameful affections, and to a reprobate sense:" [thereby] "receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. ... Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, covetousness, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy." [Footnote 20: Romans i. 21-33.] In contrasting, then, the principles, habits, and lives of the Latin subjects of the Roman empire with those inculcated by Christ in the new law, it will be found that the latter were by far the most conducive to physical and mental vigor, material happiness, and longevity. In one example we have a material philosophy, wealth, sensuality, and unlimited self-indulgence; in the other, a Christian code, inculcating virtue, charity, morality, temperance, and moderation in all things. The fruits of both systems were plainly visible, even in the days of Christ.