The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-01-11
THE OLD ROMAN WORLD.

AN INTERESTING LECTURE AT CHICKERING
HALL, by DIR. JOHN LORD.
Society in the Old Roman World" the subject
of Dr. John Lords lecture at Chickering Hall yes
terday morning. and very large audience, composed
mainly of ladies. assembled to hear it. Three years
ago DIR. Lord delivered successful of his
torical lectures i'll this city, and the present
is continuation of the SERIES The purpose of these
lectures set forth in tho prospectus is to assist
ladies and students in their historical studies. That
the ladies attend them with eye to improvement
is proved by the number who take notes during the
lecture.
Roman society in the time of which speak. said
DR.. Lord. divided into two classesthe very rich
and the very poor. At the time Of Cicero but two
thousand citizens possessed of Independent
wealth; the rest were rabble. The circus their
home the wild beasts their companions and suicide
their only consolation The life they led merely
animal and the soul went uncultivatcd. One-half
the population of the empire was slaves. Every rich
man possessed at least two hundred. The best of
them were house servants physicians and school
teachers-men who had become unfortunate and lost
their the children of such. In the country,
where they worked estates, they were cast into
dungeons to sleep. Some rose above their positions
and enancipated. Christianity made little diff
ference in their condition
The women Of pagan Rome were uneducated, and
they toiled but for the pleasures of men. Their hap
the end they had in view. Virtue was respected in
the abstract, but it not practised In wives and
daughters, however, it always reverenced.
speak now not of the debauched and adulterous
Messalinas and Agrppnas of which history tells
of the courtesans who usurped the places OF wives,
of the wives who rcsorted to cunning to keep
their husbands. The Roman woman OF the period
cultivated no friendships. She neither nurse
nor philanthropist.
A CIvIfLZER.
At no period call the Romans refined
people. They were intensely practical their pleas
coarse and they ruled by fear and not
by love. They showed much ability in war. and
their great science Jurisprudence. They loved
machinery, and therefore they civilizers.
They were good soldiers aud good lawyers but they
spurned the higher life. A civilization based
mechanism and not on ideas cannot flourish. They
not an original people, and drew upon Greece
for ideas. Their decline quick In the latter
days of Rome art not consecrated to the
high IDEAL Art became drunk with the red wine
cup of debauchery. As for literature. it made
intellectual effort. Even the classic authors
Epigrams and puns found favor, for degenerate
nation loves laugh. and literature declined like
art. Philosophy had no more hold on that people
than theology has modern dandy Christianity
yet could do nothing; II was confined to unim-
portant class All the time the empire rceling
to destruction the leading people were pagans.
how could Christianity save Rome Christianity
not sent to rotten empire; IL was sent to
mankind and mankind could not be- saved until
all the existing nations were swept away and
civilization must rise the ruins of the old. All
this the result of matcrialism, which always and
everywhere bears the same fruits.