There remained only one consolation, the contemplation of the Unknown and the Invisible. The old Gods, however, had died years before. No intelligent Roman any longer took stock in the silly nursery rhymes about Jupiter and Minerva. There were the philosophic systems of the Epicureans and the Stoics and the Cynics, all of whom preached charity and self-denial and the virtues of an unselfish and useful life. But they were so empty. They sounded well enough in the books of Zeno and Epicurus and Epictetus and Plutarch, which were to be found in every cornerstore library. But in the long run, this diet of pure reason was found to lack the necessary nourishing qualities. The Romans began to clamor for a certain amount of “emotion” with their spiritual meals. Hence the purely philosophical “religions” (for such they really were, if we associate the idea of religion with a desire to lead useful and noble lives) could only appeal to a very small number of people, and almost all of those belonged to the upper classes who had enjoyed the advantages of private instruction at the hands of competent Greek teachers. To the mass of the people, these finely-spun philosophies meant less than nothing at all. They too had reached a point of development at which a good deal of the ancient mythology seemed the childish invention of rude and credulous ancestors. But they could not possibly go as far as their so-called intellectual superiors and deny the existence of any and all personal Gods. Wherefore they did what all half-educated people do under such circumstances. They paid a formal and outward tribute of respect to the official Gods of the Republic and then betook themselves for real comfort and happiness to one of the many mystery religions which during the last two centuries had found a most cordial welcome in the ancient city on the banks of the Tiber. The word “mystery” which I have used before was of Greek origin. It originally meant a gathering of “initiated people”—of men and women whose “mouth had been shut” against the betrayal of those most holy secrets which only the true members of the mystery were supposed to know and which bound them together like the hocus pocus of a college fraternity or the cabalistic incantations of the Independent Order of Sea-Mice. During the first century of our era, however, a mystery was nothing more nor less than a special form of worship, a denomination, a church. If a Greek or a Roman (if you will pardon a little juggling with time) had left the Presbyterian church for the Christian Science church, he would have told his neighbors that he had gone to “another mystery.” For the word “church,” the “kirk,” the “house of the Lord,” is of comparatively recent origin and was not known in those days.