in them inconsistent with truth unto salvation, even though the full truth
concerned were not there. But it happens only too often that religion is
choked in ceremonial, and that the divine light is obscured by the opinions
of men.

The pagans, who inhabited the earth before Christianity was founded, had
only one kind of outward form: they had ceremonies in their worship, but
they had no articles of faith and had never dreamed of drawing up
formularies for their dogmatic theology. They knew not whether their gods
were real persons or symbols of the forces of Nature, as the sun, the
planets, the elements. Their mysteries consisted not in difficult dogmas
but in certain secret observances, whence the profane, namely those who
were not initiated, were excluded. These observances were very often
ridiculous and absurd, and it was necessary to conceal them in order to
guard them against contempt. The pagans had their superstitions: they
boasted of miracles, everything with them was full of oracles, auguries,
portents, divinations; the priests invented signs of the anger or of the
goodness of the gods, whose interpreters they claimed to be. This tended to
sway minds through fear and hope concerning human events; but the great
future of another life was scarce envisaged; one did not trouble to impart
to men true notions of God and of the soul.

Of all ancient peoples, it appears that the Hebrews alone had public dogmas
for their religion. Abraham and Moses established the belief in one God,
source of all good, author of all things. The Hebrews speak of him in a
manner worthy of the Supreme Substance; and one wonders at seeing the
inhabitants of one small region of the earth more enlightened than the rest
of the human race. Peradventure the wise men of other nations have
sometimes said the same, but they have not had the good fortune to find a
sufficient following and to convert the dogma into law. Nevertheless Moses