The mischiefs of the oriental method were apparent before Christianity appeared, and its zealous adoption of them early awakened misgivings. The indiscriminate almsgiving, the elevation of poverty to the rank of a privilege, the glorification of self-impoverishment, the acceptance of feeling as a divine monitor, and of emotion as a heavenly instinct, the substitution of the worship of the heart for deference to reason, the loose compassion, the practical and professed communism--for some of the fathers maintained that all property was based on usurpation, that all men had a common right in the earth, and that none was entitled to hold wealth except as a trust for others--soon disclosed disastrous results. Against the evils that are fairly chargeable upon the wholesale measures of the imperial bounty, must be offset the equally grave, and in some respects, not dissimilar evils incident to the unprincipled practice of loving kindness on the part of the bishops and their flocks, the increase of the dependent, the encouragement of pauperism, the waste of wealth, the worse waste of humanity. National philanthropy in London and New York finds no more serious obstacle to its advance than the benevolence that is inculcated in the name of Christ, and by authority of the New Testament. It is the battle of science against sentiment. The increased devoutness that showed itself in the empire, about the beginning of the second century, the pious passion that broke out, is attributable to natural causes, that have been mentioned by every author who has written on the subject. It is familiar knowledge that the decay of institutions, the disintegration of social bonds, the general decline of positive religious faith, a decline partly due, possibly, to the tolerance which placed all faiths side by side, was followed, or we might say accompanied by a longing after divine things that was wild in the fervor of its impulse. The complacent reign of skepticism was succeeded by a volcanic outbreak of superstition. What has been called "a storm of supernaturalism" burst forth, with the usual accompaniments of frenzy, and took possession of all classes. Only general causes of this can be assigned. That it was due to any special influence cannot be alleged. That it was due to any "supernatural" interposition of heaven, is an unnecessary supposition. The cursory reader of the history of the empire, as written by intelligent modern scholars, of whatever school, sees plainly enough the pass that things had come to and how they came to it. Christianity came in on the wave of this movement, felt its force, struck into its channel, was borne aloft on its bosom. It is customary to speak of all this spiritual ferment as a preparation for Christianity; it was such a preparation as left Christianity little of a peculiar kind to do. What new element it introduced, it would be hard to say now, however easy it seemed half a century ago. The desert land of