enchanting future was offered in exchange for a life without
hope. But the austere existence so easily embraced by the poor
was also embraced by the rich. In this above all was the power
of the new faith manifested.

Not only did the Christian revolution transform manners: it also
exercised, for a space of two thousand years, a preponderating
influence over civilisation. Directly a religious faith triumphs
all the elements of civilisation naturally adapt themselves to
it, so that civilisation is rapidly transformed. Writers,
artists and philosophers merely symbolise, in their works, the
ideas of the new faith.

When any religious or political faith whatsoever has triumphed,
not only is reason powerless to affect it, but it even finds
motives which impel it to interpret and so justify the faith in
question, and to strive to impose it upon others. There were
probably as many theologians and orators in the time of Moloch,
to prove the utility of human sacrifices, as there were at other
periods to glorify the Inquisition, the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and the hecatombs of the Terror.

We must not hope to see peoples possessed by strong beliefs
readily achieve tolerance. The only people who attained to
toleration in the ancient world were the polytheists. The
nations which practise toleration at the present time are those
that might well be termed polytheistical, since, as in England
and America, they are divided into innumerable sects.
Under identical names they really adore very different deities.