pped by
succeeding generations, wrongly, it may be, but pardonably, as a choir of
lesser deities?

But is there, on the other hand, a doubt that the age in which they were
heroic was the most unheroic of all ages; that they were bred, lived, and
died, under the most debasing of materialist tyrannies, with art,
literature, philosophy, family and national life dying or dead around
them, and in cities the corruption of which cannot be told for very
shame--cities, compared with which Paris is the abode of Arcadian
simplicity and innocence? When I read Petronius and Juvenal, and
recollect that they were the contemporaries of the Apostles; when--to
give an instance which scholars, and perhaps, happily, only scholars, can
appreciate--I glance once more at Trimalchio's feast, and remember that
within a mile of that feast St. Paul may have been preaching to a
Christian congregation, some of whom--for St. Paul makes no secret of
that strange fact--may have been, ere their conversion, partakers in just
such vulgar and bestial orgies as those which were going on in the rich
freedman's halls: after that, I say, I can put no limit to the
possibility of man's becoming heroic, even though he be surrounded by a
hell on earth; no limit to the capacities of any human being to form for
himself or herself a high and pure ideal of human character; and, without
"playing fantastic tricks before high heaven," to carry out that ideal in
every-day life; and in the most commonplace circumstances, and the most
menial occupations, to live worthy of--as I conceive--our heavenly
birthright, and to imitate the heroes, who were the kinsmen of the gods.

SUPERSTITION. A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, LONDON.

Having accepted the very great honour of being allowed to deliver here
two lectures, I have chosen as my subject Superstition and Science. It
is with Superstition that this first lecture will deal.

The subject seems to me especially fit for a clergyman; for he should,
more than other men, be able to avoid trenching on two subjects rightly
excluded from this Institution; namely, Theology--that is, the knowledge
of God; and Religion--that is, the knowledge of Duty. If he knows, as he
should, what is Theology, and what is Religion, then he should best know
what is not Theology, and what is not Religion.

For my own part, I entreat you at the outset to keep in mind that these
lectures treat of matters entirely physical; whi