position of mind, he should preserve his implicit reverence for the idols or the relics which the naked eye and the profane hand are unable to distinguish from the most common pro- ductions of art or nature ; and, if, in the hour of danger, their secret and miraculous virtue does not operate for their own preservation, he scorns the vain apologies of his priest, and justly derides the object, and the folly, of his superstitious attachment.[1] After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still entertained by the Pagans that the Nile would refuse his annual supply to the impious masters of Egypt ; and the extra- ordinary delay of the inundation seemed to announce the displeasui'e of the river-god. But this delay was soon com- pensated by the rapid swell of the waters. They suddenly rose to such an unusual height as to comfort the discontented party with the pleasing expectation of a deluge ; till the peaceful river again subsided to the well-known and fertilising level of sixteen cubits, or about thirty English feet.[2] The Pagan religion is prohibited, A.D. 390 The temples of the Roman empire were deserted, or destroyed: but the ingenious superstition of the Pagans still attempted to elude the laws of Theodosius, by which all sacrifices had been severely prohibited. The inhabitants of the country, whose conduct was less exposed to the eye of malicious curiosity, disguised their religious, under the appearance of convivial, meetings. On the days of solemn festivals, they assembled in great numbers under the spreading shade of some consecrated trees; sheep and oxen were slaughtered and roasted; and this rural entertainment was sanctified by the use of incense, and by the hymns which were sung in honour of the gods. But it was alleged that, as no part of the animal was made a burat-offering, as no altar was provided to receive the blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes and the concluding ceremony of libations were carefully omitted, these festal meetings did not involve the guests in the guilt, or penalty, of an illegal sacrifice.[3] Whatever might be the truth of the facts or the merit of the dis-
- ↑ The history of the Reformation affords frequent examples of the sudden change from superstition to contempt.
- ↑ Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 20. I have supplied the measure. The same standard of the inundation, and consequently of the cubit, has uniformly subsisted since the time of Herodotus. See Fréret, in the Mém. de I'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 344-353. Greaves's Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 233. The Egyptian cubit is about twenty-two inches of the English measure.
- ↑ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 15, 16, 17) pleads their cause with gentle and insinuating rhetoric. From the earliest age, such feasts had enlivened the country; and those of Bacchus (Georgic ii. 380) had produced the theatre of Athens. See Godefroy, ad loc. Liban. and Code. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 384.
