n speaks of them as if
they were parallel ideals--even speaks as if Paganism were the newer of
the two, and the more fitted for a new age. He suggests that the Pagan
ideal will be the ultimate good of man; but if that is so, we must at
least ask with more curiosity than he allows for, why it was that man
actually found his ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw it
away again. It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose to
attempt an answer.

There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face
with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which in
that sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity.
That fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic
neo-Paganism of which I have spoken. All that genuinely remains of the
ancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly
come to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the
festivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of
a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better
take hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at
Christmas. Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin,
even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution
is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The
anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian
origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is
one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which
can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is
Christianity.

The real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectly
summed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, and
those three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome calls
virtues of grace. The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as
justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three
mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are
faith, hope, and charity. Now much easy and foolish Christian rhetoric
could easily be poured out upon those three words, but I desire to
confine myself to the two facts which are evident about them. The
first evident fact (in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancing
pagan)--the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such
as justice and temperance, are the