245-251.)] [Footnote 85: Mr.Hume (Essays, vol.ii.p.

434) observes, like a philosopher, the natural flux and reflux of polytheism and theism.] IV.

As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar.

If, in the beginning of the fifth century, [86] Tertullian, or Lactantius, [87] had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint, or martyr, [88] they would have gazed with astonishment, and indignation, on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation.

As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noonday, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light.