_The Evil Effects of the Nicean Program:_ Surely it was not difficult among such a mass of unconverted members thus brought into the Church to find elements that would foster the errors, both in ethics and in doctrine, which about this time arose in the Church. It is small wonder that it was well nigh publicly adopted in this age--as we are informed by Mosheim--"That to deceive and lie is a virtue when religion can be promoted by it, and that error in religion ought to be visited with penalties and punishments." The first of these evils resulted in the accumulation of that mass of myth and fable that burdens the annals of the dark ages; the second established the "holy inquisition," alike the shame of the Roman Catholic church and the so-called Christian civilization she has influenced. "It is almost incredible," continues Mosheim, speaking of the first evil referred to, "what a mass of the most insipid fables, and what a host of pious falsehoods have, through all the centuries, grown out of it, to the great detriment of true religion. If some inquisitive person were to examine the conduct and the writings of the great and most pious teachers of this century, I fear he would find about all of them infected with this leprosy." "Those idle fictions," he adds, "which a regard for the Platonic philosophy, and for the prevailing opinions of the day had induced most theologians to embrace, even before the time of Constantine, were now in various ways confirmed, extended and embellished. Hence it is that we see, on every side, evident traces of excessive veneration for departed saints; of a purifying fire for the soul when separated from the body; of the celibacy of the clergy; of the worship of images and relics, and of many other opinions, which in process of time almost banished the true religion, or"--and here the Doctor perhaps remembered that he was a Protestant and that his position as such would not admit of conceding the utter subversion of the Christian religion, and hence added--"or at least very much obscured and corrupted it." Genuine piety was supplanted by a long train of superstitious observances, which originated partly from opinions inconsiderately embraced, partly from a preposterous disposition to adopt profane rites and combine them with Christian worship, and partly from the natural predilection of mankind in general for a splendid and ostentatious religion. LESSON XXXVI. (Scripture Reading Exercise.) SPIRITUAL AND DOCTRINAL CHANGES. ANALYSIS. I. Spiritual Gifts. 1. Nature and Enjoyment of them by Early Christians. 2. Loss of them during the second and third Centuries. II. The Christian Doctrine of Deity. REFERENCES. See the Authorities cited in the notes. On the Christian Doctrine of Deity, see a Lecture "Jesus Christ the Revelation of God," in Mormon Doctrine of Deity, ch. iv. NOTES.