Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/54

 i8 Readings in European History The chief objects of Pagan religions were to foretell the future, to explain the universe, to avert calamity, to obtain the assistance of the gods. They contained no instruments of moral teaching analogous to our institution of preaching, or to the moral preparation for the reception of the sacra- ment, or to confession, or to the reading of the Bible, or to religious education, or to united prayer for spiritual benefits. To make men virtuous was no more the function of the priest than of the physician. On the other hand, the philosophic expositions of duty [such as those given above] were wholly unconnected with the religious ceremonies of the temple. The high moral teachings of the philosophers, like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, had doubtless been brought to the attention of a considerable number of educated people through the discussions of the rhetori- cians. Some sects, like the Pythagoreans, recommended religious ceremonies for the purpose of purifying the mind, and among the Oriental religions (such as the worship of Mithras), which were introduced at Rome under the Empire, certain rites were to be found which closely resembled those of the Christians. But it was the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity that its moral influence was not indirect, casual, remote, or spasmodic. Unlike all Pagan religions, it made moral teaching a main function of its clergy, moral discipline the leading object of its services, moral dispositions the neces- sary condition of the due performance of its rites. By the pulpit, by its ceremonies, by all the agencies of power it pos- sessed, it laboured systematically and perseveringly for the regeneration of mankind. Under its influence, doctrines concerning the nature of God, the immortality of the soul, and the duties of man, which the noblest intellects of antiq- uity could barely grasp, have become the truisms of the village school, the proverbs of the cottage and of the alley.