Their demi-god, Hercules, who turned rivers from their courses, withdrew the dead from the world of shades, and struck terror into the powers of Orcus, was yet the slave of his appetites, and the dupe of his mistress. Mental imbecility was in him, as in his worshipers, the concomitant of extreme physical force. It was from no love of humanity that Cæsar led his warriors into Britain; and yet the circumstance of that conquest at exactly that time, affected the whole civilization of what is now earth's leading race. It is thus that every successive improvement rises, phœnix-like, from the ashes of the past. In all ages, the most thoughtful have regarded religion as the unique foundation of duties, as, in turn, duties are the unique bond of society. Public conscience has never been obliterated, however much it has often been obscured. The legislators of antiquity were not in a condition well to understand the nature and relations of highest divinity, but such revelations as were in their possession they employed to consolidate the social edifice, by placing religion in the family, and in the state, as a part of the domestic constitution and general government. In a manner, they caused the laws of heaven to descend and become attached to all the events of human life, and every variety of civil compacts. They even submitted inanimate objects, as woods, waters, and the boundary-stones of their patrimonies, to celestial supervision; and, it would seem, strove to multiply their gods to an infinite extent, prompted by that instinctive consciousness which every where links the finite creature to his eternal Creator. "Let one attempt to build a city in the air," said Plutarch, "rather than expect to found and long preserve a state from which the gods are driven." Instructed by all preceding experience, and universal tradition, ancient wisdom comprehended thoroughly that there was no national perpetuity save as religion contributed that divine force, foreign to the works of men, and indispensable to the creation of durable institutions. Aristotle recognized in this the common law, and Cicero declared it to be the source of all obligations, the base, support, and main regulator, of states constituted according to nature, and under the direction of supreme intelligence. Plato taught that in every Republic, the first endeavor should be to establish true religion, and to place the welfare of all youth under executive protection. When this was least regarded at Rome, as under the first Cæsars, all the bonds of society were at once loosened, and the empire subsequently suffered complete dissolution under the blows of those barbaric nations who were sent of God to overthrow an atheistic people, and prepare the way for a diviner faith. It is a sad prudence which, to obtain a few minutes of false peace, would sacrifice the future of faith and the life of society.