Her singular and in many ways beautiful ritual was now popular in Rome.

And then--what the enthusiasm of the swarming plebeian quarters had initiated, was sure to be adopted, sooner or later, by women of fashion.

A blending of all the religions of the ancient world had been accomplished.

The new gods had arrived, had been welcomed, and found their places; though, certainly, with no real security, in any adequate ideal of the divine nature itself in the background of men's minds, that the presence of the new-comer should be edifying, or even refining.

High and low addressed themselves to all deities alike without scruple; confusing them together when they prayed, and in the old, [185] authorised, threefold veneration of their visible images, by flowers, incense, and ceremonial lights--those beautiful usages, which the church, in her way through the world, ever making spoil of the world's goods for the better uses of the human spirit, took up and sanctified in her service.
And certainly "the most religious city in the world" took no care to veil its devotion, however fantastic.