Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

374 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMsophy its discussion on the other. At the end of thattime what was the result? The pantheistic god ofPhilosophy never got beyond the lecture-room, wherehis audience comprised a sprinkling of cultured menand women, who employed their learned ease in listeningto a Plotinus or a Porphyrius, and worshipped atthe same time the gods of Greece, or Egypt, or theEast. Up to the reign of Constantino it may safely besaid that Philosophy hud never caused a single idolaterto desert his idols, or a single servant of the temple togive up her unholy worship. But had the belief inthe philosophic god been far more real than it was,there is yet a vast difference between the existenceof a doctrine on paper, and the impressing thatdoctrine upon the lives and habits of men. Thetest of spiritual power lies in producing action, intransmuting belief into conduct. Heathen life wasaction ; Christian life was action; Philosophy was talk,or writing; the talk evaporated in the lecture-room ;the writing never passed further than the paper. Forthe recitation in the restricted lecture-room was but apage out of a book which the hearer might receive ashe pleased and do what he pleased with. All thewhile there were statues in myriads of temples to amultitude of gods, sacrifices upon myriads of altars,priests who offered them, national and hereditarytraditions hovering around them, customs of life andhome affections connected with them, these were areality, a great and abiding force, which Philosophydid not attempt to overthrow, of which indeed it hadmade itself the ally. Plotinus and Porphyrius and lam-blichus were perfectly good friends with Jupiter and hiswife, and all his children legitimate and illegitimate.I. The doctrine th;it there is One God, distinct