a system of economics, or a code of civil prudence, or a code
of health, or a theory of morals, or even a secret revelation of
mysterious relations between man and the Deity: all which existed
in Judaism. But, as the case stood, this was impossible. The gods
were mere odious facts, like scorpions or rattlesnakes, having no
moral aspects whatever; public nuisances; and bearing no relation
to man but that of capricious tyrants. First arising upon a basis
of terror, these gods never subsequently enlarged that basis;
nor sought to enlarge it. All antiquity contains no hint of a
possibility that _love_ could arise, as by any ray mingling
with the sentiments in a human creature towards a Divine one; not
even sycophants ever pretended to _love_ the gods.

Under this original peculiarity of Paganism, there arose two
consequences, which I will mark by the Greek letters α and β.
The latter I will notice in its order, first calling the reader's
attention to the consequence marked α, which is this:--In the
full and profoundest sense of the word _believe_, the pagans
could not be said to believe in _any_ gods: but, in the
ordinary sense, they did, and do, and must believe, in _all_
gods. As this proposition will startle some readers, and is yet
closely involved in the main truth which I am now pressing, viz.
the meaning and effect of a simple _cultus_, as distinguished
from a high doctrinal religion, let us seek an illustration from
our Indian empire. The Christian missionaries from home, when first
opening their views to Hindoos, describe themselves as laboring
to prove that Christianity is a true religion, and as either
asserting, or leaving it to be inferred, that, on that assumption,
the Hindoo religion is a false one. But the poor Hindoo never
dreamed of doubting that the Christian was a true religion; nor