Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/528

 522 MITNICIPAL KEGIME DISAPPEAES. BOOK V. its sacred character to its antiquity alone, — was now a collection of doctrines, and a great object proposed to faith. It was no longer exterior; it took up its abode especially in the thoughts of man. It was no longer matter; it became spiiit. Christianity changed the nature and the form of adoration. Man no longer of- fered God food and drink. Prayer was no longer a form of incantation ; it was an act of faith and a humble petition. The soul sustained another relation with the divinity; the fear of the gods was replaced by the love of God. Christianity introduced other now ideas. It was not the domestic religion of any family, the national leli- gion of any city, or of any race. It belonged neither to a caste nor to a corporation. From its first appear- ance it called to itself the whole human race. Christ said to his disciples, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." This principle was so extraordinary, and so unex- pected, that the first disciples hesitated for a moment; we may see in the Acts of the Apostles that several of them refused at first to propagate the new doctrine outside the nation with which it had originated. These disciples thouglit, like the ancient Jews, that the God of the Jews .would not accept adoration from foreign- •ers; like the Romans and the Greeks of ancient times, they believed that every race had its god, that to propa- gate the name and worship of this god was to give up one's own good and special protector, and that such a work was contrary at the same time to duty and to in- terest. But Peter replied to these disciples, "God gave the gentiles the like gift as he did unto us." St. Paul loved to repeat this grand principle on all occasions, -and in every kind of lorra. "God had opened the door