man or the race that had been guilty of crime. And as was the evil, so
was the remedy. External acts and observations might cleanse and purge
away what was regarded as an external affection of the soul; and we know
that in historic times there was a class of men, comparable to the
mediaeval "pardoners", whose profession it was to effect such cures.
Plato has described them for us in striking terms. "Mendicant prophets,"
he says, "go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a
power committed to them of making an atonement for their sins or those
of their fathers by sacrifices or charms with rejoicings and games; and
they promise to harm an enemy whether just or unjust, at a small charge;
with magic arts and incantations binding the will of heaven, as they
say, to do their work.... And they produce a host of books written by
Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses--that
is what they say--according to which they perform their ritual, and
persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and
atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a
vacant hour." [Footnote: Plato's Republic, II. 364b.--Jowett's
translation.]

How far is all this from the Puritan view of sin! How far from the
Christian of the "Pilgrim's Progress" with the burden on his back! To
measure the distance we have only to attend, with this passage in our
mind, a meeting, say, of the "Salvation Army". We shall then perhaps
understand better the distinction between the popular religion of the
Greeks and our own; between the conception of sin as a physical
contagion to be cured by external rites, and the conception of it as an
affection of the conscience which only "grace" can expel. In the one
case the fact that a man was under the taint of crime would be borne in
upon him by actual misfortune from without--by sickness, or failure in
business, or some other of the troubles of life; and he would ease his