Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

WHEN CHRIST APPEARED.23to the mind-that the vilest drama ever actedupon a modern theatre was being daily carried onin all the churches of Christendom by troops ofpriests and priestesses, with all the paraphworship, " with > V J-L/iJ. pravers, i^JL IA) V V^J. KJ« invoc JLJ.J. T Vy \JlAi U-M-\S J-JL«sacrifices, as a service acceptable to the Euler ofman's lot, and as an account of what that rulerhad Himself done, and of what He loved to beimitated by others. That would be a picture ofheathen worship in the time of Augustus ; thatwould be the moral food on which was nurturedthat crowd of nations which acknowledged Cesar'ssway; that the conception of divine things wroughtinto the minds of the hundred millions of men whoformed the Roman empire.Was it surprising that all worshippers of thegods should look for their example rather inJupiter's actions than in Plato's teaching or themoral judgments of Cato?21 A nature subject intself to the sway of passion was stimulated byauthority supposed to be divine to the commissionof every criminal excess ; and herein lay a strongproof of the malignant and impure character ofthese gods.On the other hand, the same eye-witness challengesthe defenders of the pagan gods to produceia single instance wherein moral precepts of livingwere delivered to their worshippers upon divine21 " Omnes cultores talium deorum-magis intuentur quid Jupiterfecerit, quam quid docuerit Plato vel censuerit Cato." De Civ. Dei, ii. 7.