all serious peoples, went to their own hearts for their real guidance.
They had a unique religious peculiarity, to which no race of men has
produced anything like. They did not embody the elemental forces in
personal forms; they did not fashion a theology out of the movements of
the sun and stars or the changes of the seasons. Traces may be found among
them of cosmic traditions and superstitions, which were common to all the
world; but they added of their own this especial feature: that they built
temples and offered sacrifices to the highest human excellences, to
"Valor," to "Truth," to "Good Faith," to "Modesty," to "Charity," to
"Concord." In these qualities lay all that raised man above the animals
with which he had so much in common. In them, therefore, were to be found
the link which connected him with the divine nature, and moral qualities
were regarded as divine influences which gave his life its meaning and its
worth. The "Virtues" were elevated into beings to whom disobedience could
be punished as a crime, and the superstitious fears which run so often
into mischievous idolatries were enlisted with conscience in the direct
service of right action.

On the same principle the Romans chose the heroes and heroines of their
national history. The Manlii and Valerii were patterns of courage, the
Lucretias and Virginias of purity, the Decii and Curtii of patriotic
devotion, the Reguli and Fabricii of stainless truthfulness. On the same
principle, too, they had a public officer whose functions resembled those
of the Church courts in mediaeval Europe, a Censor Morum, an inquisitor
who might examine into the habits of private families, rebuke
extravagance, check luxury, punish vice and self-indulgence, nay, who
could remove from the Senate, the great council of elders, persons whose
moral conduct was a reproach to a body on whose reputation no shadow could
be allowed to rest.