I see it; for the character of our gods
hath formed the character of our nation. Serapis and Isis have stolen
in among them within our memory, and others will follow, until at last
Saturn will not be the only one emasculated by his successor. What can
be more august than our rites? The first dignitaries of the republic
are emulous to administer them: nothing of low or venal has any place
in them; nothing pusillanimous, nothing unsocial and austere. I speak
of them as they were; before Superstition woke up again from her
slumber, and caught to her bosom with maternal love the alluvial
monsters of the Nile. Philosophy, never fit for the people, had
entered the best houses, and the image of Epicurus had taken the place
of the Lemures. But men cannot bear to be deprived long together of
anything they are used to, not even of their fears; and, by a reaction
of the mind appertaining to our nature, new stimulants were looked
for, not on the side of pleasure, where nothing new could be expected
or imagined, but on the opposite. Irreligion is followed by
fanaticism, and fanaticism by irreligion, alternately and perpetually.

_Lucullus._ The religion of our country, as you observe, is well
adapted to its inhabitants. Our progenitor, Mars, hath Venus recumbent
on his breast and looking up to him, teaching us that pleasure is to
be sought in the bosom of valour and by the means of war. No great
alteration, I think, will ever be made in our rites and
ceremonies--the best and most imposing that could be collected from
all nations, and uniting them to us by our complacence in adopting
them. The gods themselves may change names, to flatter new power: and,
indeed, as we degenerate, Religion will accommodate herself to our
propensities and desires. Our heaven is now popular: it will become
monarchal; not without a crowded court, as befits it, of apparitors
and satellites and minions of both sexes, paid and caressed for
carrying to their stern, dark-bearded master prayers and
supplications. Altars must be strown with broken minds, and incense
rise amid abject aspirations. Gods will be found unfit for their
places; and it is not impossible that, in the ruin imminent from our
contentions for power, and in the necessary extinction both of ancient
families and of generous sentiments, our consular fasces may become
the water-sprinklers of some upstart priesthood, and that my son may
apply for lustration to the son of my groom. The interest of