culture extended, a substitute for declining natural religion, a satisfaction for religious cravings, and a support for moral life. This philosophic religion is quite independent of the traditional religion. The Stoic philosophy contains no feature of importance which we can pronounce with certainty to be taken from the popular faith. The true worship of God, according to their view, consists only in the mental effort to know God, and in a moral and pious life. [884] A really acceptable prayer can have no reference to external goods; it can only have for its object a virtuous and devout [(1) Connection of Stoicism, with popular faith.] mind. [885] Still, there were reasons which led the Stoics to seek a closer union with the popular faith. A system which attached so great an importance to popular opinion, particularly in proving the existence of God, [886] could not, without extreme danger to itself, declare the current opinions respecting the Gods to be erroneous. And again, the ethical platform of the Stoic philosophy imposed on its adherents the duty of upholding rather than overthrowing the popular creed—that creed forming a barrier against the violence of human passions. [887] The practical value of the popular faith may, then, be the cause of their theological orthodoxy. Just as the Romans, long after all faith in the Gods had been lost under the influence of Greek culture, [888] still found it useful and necessary to uphold the traditional faith, so the Stoics may have feared that, were the worship of the people’s Gods to be suspended, that respect for God and the divine law on which they depended for the support of their own moral tenets would at the same time be exterminated. [(2) Free criticism of popular belief.]