MORAL INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 457

beings, who have broken loose from the holy God of Christians,are capable ; but still never did this abandonment, even in itswildest intoxication, proceed to such excesses as appear through-out the whole succession of the Roman emperors. An emperorwho fought naked before the people, at the shows of the gladia-tors, like several of the Roman emperors ; an emperor whoestablished a brothel in his palace„and required the toll to bepaid to himself, like Caligula ; an emperor who drove through thestreets of his capital with his naked mistress, like Nero ; anempress who publicly commended herself to the coarsest lovers,and exposed her embraces for sale, like Messalina ; an emperorwho first dishonored his sister and then put her to death, likeCommodus ; an emperor who distributed the highest offices ac-cording to the greater or less degree of capacity for licentious-ness, like Heliogabalus ; emperors, who caused persons to bekilled in sport, for the sake of seeing them die ; who causedbridges to be suddenly broken down, that they might enjoy thesight of a multitude of people sinking in the waves, —such rulers,had not even degenerate (though Christian) Byzantium ; — for,only when centuries shall have obliterated every vestige ofChristianity in the world, and in the hearts of men, is it possiblethat such enormities should be perpetrated.”* Well may werely, therefore, for the preservation and extension of good morals,on the preservation and strengthening of Christianity, in countrieswhere it is now acknowledged and respected ; and on the propa-gation of its blessed influence in those countries, throughout theearth, which still sit in the shadow and darkness of heathenismand Mahometanism.

2. Next to Christianity, and as her most natural and effectiveally, associate, and handmaid, we must rely on the influence ofknowledge for the preservation and advancement of the cause ofgood morals. In truth, the moral habits, which the pursuit ofknowledge has a tendency to create and foster, form one of itschief recommendations. Knowledge is, essentially and directly,power ; but is also, indirectly, virtue. And this it is in twoways. It can hardly be acquired without the exertion of several

* Robinson’s Biblical Repository, for 1832, p. 462.58