tianity when they turned themselves to the heathen public. Now
the first thing that strikes us is, that the religion they carried with
them was exclusive. It denied without reserve the truth of every article
of heathen mythology, the existence of every object of their worship. It
accepted no compromise, it admitted no comprehension. It must prevail,
if it prevailed at all, by the overthrow of every statue, altar, and
temple in the world, It will not easily be credited, that a design, so
bold as this was, could in any age be attempted to be carried into
execution with impunity.

For it ought to be considered, that this was not setting forth, or
magnifying the character and worship of some new competitor for a place
in the Pantheon, whose pretensions might he discussed or asserted
without questioning the reality of any others: it was pronouncing all
other gods to be false, and all other worship vain. From the facility
with which the polytheism of ancient nations admitted new objects of
worship into the number of their acknowledged divinities, or the
patience with which they might entertain proposals of this kind, we can
argue nothing as to their toleration of a system, or of the publishers
and active propagators of a system, which swept away the very foundation
of the existing establishment. The one was nothing more than what it
would be, in popish countries, to add a saint to the calendar; the other
was to abolish and tread under foot the calendar itself.

Secondly, it ought also to be considered, that this was not the case of
philosophers propounding in their books, or in their schools, doubts
concerning the truth of the popular creed, or even avowing their
disbelief of it. These philosophers did not go about from place to place
to collect proselytes from amongst the common people; to form in the
heart of the country societies professing their tenets; to provide for
the order, instruction and permanency of these societies; nor did they
enjoin their followers to withdraw themselves from the public worship of
the temples, or refuse a compliance with rites instituted by the laws.*
These things are what the Christians did, and what the philosophers did
not; and in these consisted the activity and danger of the enterprise.

_________

* The best of the ancient philosophers, Plato, Cicero, and Epictetus,
allowed, or rather enjoined, men to worship the gods of the country, and
in the established form. See passages to this p