believing other men's to be still worse than his, or seeing their strength
to be greater. We repeat that a preceptive system thus estimated could
not, even had the principles to which it gave expression in the mandates
of law been no other than those of the soundest morality, have impressed
them with the weight of sanctity on the conscience. And all this but tends
to show the necessity that the rules and sanctions of morality, to come
with simplicity and power on the human mind, should primarily emanate, and
be acknowledged as emanating, from a Being exalted above all implication
and competition of interest with man.

Thus we see, that the pagan ignorance precluded one grand requisite for
crushing the dominion of iniquity; for there was nothing to insinuate or
to force its way into the recesses of the soul, to apply _there_ a
repressive power to the depraved ardor which glowed in the passions. That
was left, inaccessible and inextinguishable, as the subterranean fires in
a volcanic region. And in the mighty impulse to evil with which it was
continually operating as an energy of feeling, it compelled the
subservience of the intellect; and thus combined the passions with a
faculty skilful to guide their direction, to diversify their objects, to
invent expedients, and to seize and create occasions. What was it that
this intelligent depravity would stop short of accomplishing? Reflect on
the extent of human genius, in its powers of invention, combination, and
adaptation; and then think of all this faculty, in an immense number of
minds, through many ages, and in every imaginable variety of situation,
exerted with unremitting activity in aid of the wrong propensities.
Reflect how many ideas, apt and opportune for this service, would spring
up casually, or be suggested by circumstances, or be attained by the
earnest study of beings goaded in pursuit of change and novelty. The
simple modes of iniquity were put under an active ministry of art, to
combine, innovate, and augment. And so indefatigable was its exercise,