Principles of the Pagan religion.

sing, encrease in man an attachment to things terrestrial; let every citizen be employed in promoting the prosperity, the glory and power of his country; and let religion be the panegyrist of every action that promotes the welfare of the majority, sanctify all useful establishments, and never destroy them. May the interest of the spiritual and temporal powers be for ever one and the same; may these two powers be reunited, as at Rome, in the hands of the magistrates (45) may the voice of heaven be henceforth that of the public good: and may the oracles of God confirm every law that is advantageous to the people!

CHAP. XV.

AMONG THE FALSE RELIGIONS, WHICH HAVE BEEN LEAST DETRIMENTAL TO THE HAPPINESS OF SOCIETY?

THE first I shall mention is that of the Pagans: but at the time of its institution, this pretended religion was nothing more than the allegorical system of nature. Saturn was Time, Ceres, Matter; and Jupiter the generating Spirit (46). All the fables of mythology were mere emblems of certain principles of nature. When we consider it as a religious system, was it so absurd to adore

VOL. I.

F

Principles of the Pagan religion.

adore, under various names, the different attributes of the Divinity * ?

In the temples of Minerva, of Venus, Mars, Apollo, and Fortune, whom did they adore? Jupiter, by turns considered as wise, beautiful, powerful, enlightening and fertilising the universe. Is it more rational to erect, under the names of St. Eustache, St. Martin, or St. Roch, temples to the Supreme Being? But the Pagans knelt before statues of wood or stone. The Catholics do the same; and if we may judge by external appearances, they frequently express more veneration for their saints than for the Eternal.

I am willing to allow moreover that the Pagan religion was the most absurd. It is wrong for a religion to be absurd: its absurdity may have mischievous consequences. This fault, however, is not of the first magnitude; and if its principles be not entirely opposite to the public good, if its maxims may be made agreeable to the laws, and the general utility, it is even the least detrimental of all others. Such was the Pagan religion. It never opposed the projects of a patriotie legislature. It was without dogmas, and consequently humane and tolerant. There could be no dispute, no war among its sectaries that the slightest attention of the magistrates would not prevent. Its

* We are astonished at the absurdity of the Pagan religion : posterity will one day be far more astonished at the religion of the Papists.

worship

Principles of the Pagan religion.

worship moreover did not require a great number of priests, and therefore was not necessarily a charge to

the state.

Their Lares or domestic gods, sufficed for the daily worship of individuals. Some temples erected in large cities, some colleges of priests, some pompous festivals, were sufficient for their rational devotion. These festivals, in the vacation from rural labours, gave the inhabitants an opportunity to visit the cities, and became thereby a season of pleasure. Though these feasts were magnificent, they were rare, and consequently but little expensive. The Pagan religion had not therefore any of the inconveniencies of Popery.

This religion of the senses was moreover the most proper for mankind, the best adapted to produce those strong impressions that it is necessary for the legislature sometimes to excite in the people. The imagina tion being thereby continually kept in action, nature was held in entire subjection to the empire of Poesy, which enlivened and invigorated every part of the universe. The summits of the mountains, the wide extended plains, the impenetrable forests, the sources, of the rivers, and the depths of the scas, were peopled by the Oreades, the Fauns, the Napæ, the Hamadryades, the Tritons, and Nereides. The gods, and goddesses lived in society with mortals, took a part in their feasts, their wars, and their amours; Neptune supped with the king of Ethiopia. The Nymphs and Heroes sat down among the Gods. Latona had her altars. The

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Passions encouraged by the Pagan religion. ·

The deified Hercules espoused Hebe. These celebrated heroes inhabited the fields and the groves of Elysium. Those fields, since adorned by the ardent imagination of the prophet, who transported thither the Houris, were the abode of various and illustrious men of every sort. It was there that Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax, Agamemnon, and all those heroes that fought under the walls of Troy, were still employed in military exercises; it was there that Pindar and Homer still celebrated the Olympic games, and the exploits of the Greeks.

The sort of exercise and song that had been the occupation of the heroes and poets on the earth; in a word, all the tastes they had contracted, accompanied them in the infernal regions. Their death was properly no other than a prolongation of their life.

According to this religion, what must have been the most earnest desire, the most cogent interest of the Pagans? That of serving their country by their talents, their courage, their integrity, their generosity, by all their virtues. It became a matter of importance to render themselves dear to those, with whom they were to continue their existence after death. Far from extinguishing that enthusiasm which a wise legislation inspires for virtue and talents, it was by this religion more strongly excited. The ancient legislators convinced of the utility of the passions, had no desire to stifle them. What sort of men would you look for among a people without desires? Merchants, captains,

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soldiers,

Passions excited by the Scandinavian religion.

soldiers, men of letters, able ministers? No: none but monks.

A people without industry, courage, riches, and science, are born the slaves of any neighbour that has boldness enough to put on their fetters. Men must have passions, and the Pagan religion did not extinguish in them the sacred and animating fire. Perhaps the Scandinavian, a little different from the Greek and Roman, led mankind to virtue by a more efficacious method. Reputation was the god of this people. It was the only divinity from whom the inhabitants expected their reward. Every one aspired to be the child of Reputation. Every one honoured the bards, as the distributors of glory, and the priests of the temple of renown*. The silence of the bards was dreadful to warriors, and even to princes. Contempt was the lot of every one that was not the child of Reputation. Flattery was then unknown to the poets. The severe and incorruptible inhabitants of a free country, they had not then debased themselves by servile eulogies. No one among them even dared to celebrate a name that the public esteem had not already consecrated. To obtain this esteem, a man must have rendered some

*The advantage of this religion over some others is inestimable ; as it rewards those talents and actions only that are useful to our country; and the heaven of other religions, is the reward of fasting, solitude, castigation, and other stupid virtues that are useless to society.