same time they were regarded as quite distinct from
the society of men. Although there was in this multiplicity of divine
forms an hierarchical order of different ranks, there was no general
conception to include the destinies of the whole human race, and to
manifest by its unity its providential and historical development. Each
people believed in their own special destiny, which should either raise
them to greater glory and power or bring them to a speedy and inevitable
end; but there was no common fate, no common prosperity nor disaster.
Rome had, as far as possible, united these various peoples by the idea
of her power, by the inforcement of her laws, and by the benefits of her
citizenship, yet the Roman unity was external, and did not spring from
the intimate sense of a common lineage. While the nations were so
closely united to Rome by brute force, the subject peoples were agitated
by a desire for their ancient independence and self-government. Some of
these pagan multitudes advanced in civilization through their education
in the learning of the Romans, and in morality through their spontaneous
activity, but they did not possess any deep sense of a general
providence, and heaven and earth continued to be under the sway of an
incomprehensible fate.

"If we now turn to consider the mental conditions of educated men at
that time, we shall see that they transformed the Olympus of personal
and concrete gods into symbols of the forces of nature, and that they
had risen to a purer conception of the deity by making it agree with the
progress of reason; but this deity was so remote from earth as to have
scarcely anything to do with the government of the world. According to
the teaching of the Stoics, which was very generally diffused, man was
supposed to be so far left to himself that he was the creator of his own
virtue, and had to struggle, not only against nature and his fellow-man,
but against fate, the underlying essence of every cosmic form and
motion. If this pagan rationalism gave rise to great theoretic morality,
and produced amazing examples of private and public virtue, it had
little effect on the multitudes, nor did it contain any guiding
principle for the historical life of humanity as a whole.

"Christianity proclaimed the spiritual unity of God, the unity of the
race, the brotherhood of all peoples, the redemption of the world, and
consequently a providential influence on mankind. Christianity taught
that G