Ladies and Gentlemen,--At our last meeting we attempted to show the situation of the Roman Empire in regard to religious questions during the first century. There was in the vast gathering of populations which composed the empire a pressing want of religion, a true moral progress, which called for a pure worship without superstitious practices or bloody sacrifices; a tendency to Monotheism, which made the old mythological recitals appear ridiculous; a general sentiment of sympathy and of charity, which inspired the desire of association, of assembling together for prayer, for support, for consolation, for the assurance that after death one would be interred by his brethren, who would also make a little feast in his memory. Asia Minor, Greece, Syria, and Egypt contained masses of the poor,--very honest men, after their manner, humble, and without distinction; but revolted at the spectacle which the Roman aristocracy made, full of horror at those hideous representations in the theatres, in which Rome made a diversion of suffering. The moral conscience of the human race sent up an immense protestation, and there was no priest to interpret it, no pitying God to reply to the sighs of poor suffering humanity. Slavery, in spite of the protestations of the sages, remained very cruel. Claudius thought to do a grand and humane act in making a law that the master who should drive from his house an old and sick slave should lose his right in that slave, if he were cured. How could gods without compassion, and born of joy and the primitive imagination, be expected to console for such evils? A Father in heaven was required, who kept a record of the efforts of man, and promised him a recompense. A future of justice was desired, in which the earth belonged to the feeble and the poor. The assurance was necessary, that, when a man suffered, it was not an entire loss, and that beyond those sad horizons, veiled by tears, there were happy fields in which one day he should console himself for his sorrows. Judaism indeed had all that. By the institution of the synagogues (do not forget, gentlemen, that it is from the synagogue that the church comes), it established association in the most powerful form in which it had ever been realized. In appearance, at least, the worship was pure Deism; no images, only scorn and sarcasm for idols. But that which above all characterized the Jew was his confidence in a brilliant and happy future for humanity. Having no idea based upon the immortality of the soul, nor upon the remunerations and punishments beyond the tomb, the Jew, disciple of the ancient prophet, was as if intoxicated with the sentiment of justice: he wished justice now upon earth. Having little confidence in the assurances of the eternity which made the Christians so easily resigned, the Jew grumbled at Jehovah, reproached him with his ignorance, and demanded how he could leave the earth so long in the power of the impious.