The radical imperfection of paganism in the Periclean age consisted in the fact that all the sublime attributes of intellect but served to ennoble man in his present being. The strength of the moral affections, the perfection of beauty, the love of truth, and all that which for the Christian is to survive the grave and be immortally augmented when separate from earth, to them had little or no object beyond this life. To direct and enjoy the present was his chief concern, and in his view the universe was created only to this end. The god of day pursued his ceaseless round to cheer his waking toil, and the chaste queen of night watched over his repose. The universal Jove came down from Olympus to inspire him; Minerva protected him with her awful shield of wisdom; the graceful goddess of Love placed her shrine in his heart; and super-human beings, captivated with his superior charms, sought on earth a loveliness not to be found in heaven. Even the fates were subordinate to his welfare, and all existences centred round his destiny; so that, were he destroyed, all things would dissolve like an empty pageant, and heaven, earth, and hell, with all their denizens, would cease to be. In the Augustan age the condition of paganism was still worse. When Rome rose, and steadily advanced to the attainment of universal empire, the religions of all the separate states subjugated were intimately interwoven with her political law, and that was concentrated in the metropolis, whither the religions, like all other spoils, were compelled to follow. Rent from their native soil, these religions, like so many automatons, were doubly senseless and impotent. The worship of Isis had a meaning in Egypt, it being a reverence for the powers of nature; in Rome it became an idolatry which signified only a sign and evidence of the victorious eagle of the city. The more beautiful and significant myths of Greece were equally perverted or stupidly ignored. Mythologies the most diverse and conflicting were brought together only to contend with and neutralize each other. There was but one power left that seemed real, the emperor. Temples were erected to his honor, oaths were taken in his name, sacrifices were offered before him, and his statues alone offered an asylum. There was no state religion, but power and religion were identical. Man sacrificing to man sank to the lowest degradation of spiritual vassalage. Inspiring sentiment and religious fervor were extinguished, leaving nothing more attractive or exalting on national shrines than the deification of power, the apotheosis of might. But when Rome had destroyed the various nationalities of the world, there was yet a susceptibility in the human heart which she could not annihilate--something through which men might hold communion with each other--a bond beyond the mere relation of a citizen to his state. The auspicious hour had come, in the midst of utter desolation,