Thus in Syria and Egypt Christianity became degraded. It sank into a species of idolatry. The acme of absurdity was attained by the Stylites, who conceived that mankind had no nobler end than to live and die upon the capital of a column. Thus nations were weakened. Self-mortification and religious penances soon degenerate a race, especially in hot climates, where a moderate indulgence in the comforts, the luxuries, and the pleasures of life strengthens the body and with it the mind of man. The founders of Christianity had neglected to insist upon daily prayer at stated times, and ceremonial cleanliness, which is next to godliness. They forgot those dietetic directions and prescriptions so necessary in the East, and allowed the use of inebrients, together with impure and unwholesome meats as pork and rabbit’s flesh. Man’s physique suffered from their improvidence. Thus, whilst Christianity increased in numbers and powers, some once populous and flourishing countries--Egypt for instance--declined, and fell to the lowest depths of degradation. It is the race of man that exalts the faith in proportion to man’s moral and material excellence. The faith fails, on the other hand, to raise a degraded race. The Armenians and Abyssinians have derived little from the specific virtues of Christianity. Inferior in mind and body to the Turks and Arabs, they have degenerated into a semi-idolatry at once ridiculous and contemptible. With respect to moral conduct, a modern traveller (Curzon, _Armenia_) has had the courage openly to state that in Turkey not one-tenth part of the crime exists which is annually committed in Christendom. Sectarians are fond of citing in favour of their Reformation the superiority of the Protestant over the Catholic cantons of Switzerland. They forget that the former belong to the hardy and industrious nations of the North, and that the latter are in climate and population indolent Southrons.