noble spirit, but prone to wander in the ways of evil. Surely the great apostle to the Gentiles uttered the truth when he said, "The world by wisdom knew not God."

"Surely if there ever was an opportunity for man to do without an outward revelation from God, it was in the heydays of Greece, when such a galaxy of genius adorned the world as has never been surpassed in after-times. If human philosophy could regenerate mankind, surely the country of Plato and Socrates, of Aristotle and Pytha goras, would have become a model of virtue. And we do not deny that the Hellenic soil brought forth some choice fruits. It nourished a heroic patriotism which still, after the lapse of two thousand years, makes the pulse bound at the names of Marathon and Thermopyla; it covered the land with the most lovely creations of art, and in the wide sphere of intellectual achievement it erected monuments that will last while the world endures. But the genius of Greece lamentably failed when it came to expound the relations of God to man; its force was destructive, not constructive. It exploded the airy fabrics of primeval nature-worship; it expelled the Dryads from the woods and the Naiads from the fountains; it dethroned the Thunderer, and turned the laugh against gloomy

Dis; but it could not construct a new religion; it failed utterly to erect any bulwark against the tide of human passion, and did not stop for a day the decay of Grecian morals."1

Thus, all the influences of the developing intel· lectual faculties failed to rescue the society of Greece from the awful current of immorality that was sweeping it onward to destruction.

In concluding this chapter let us take a glance at the powerful influences for evil that were operating with the public sanction. Although the scene is not pleasing, it will impress upon the mind more effectively the utter failure of man in his best estate to redeem himself. A description of Roman morals will be reserved for a future chapter, but they were no improvement on Grecian morals- -worse rather than better.

The city of Corinth was devoted to the worship of Venus, the goddess of love—more properly lust. The historian is obliged to draw the veil over the deeds of darkness done in her honor; in fact, the most honored persons in the city were the sacred prostitutes consecrated to her worship. According to Strabo, one temple possessed one thousand of these prostitutes. Such a thing in Corinth as

1 Samuel Smith, Credibility of the Christian Religion, pp. 19, 20.

female virtue was scarcely known. Solon, the venerated Grecian sage and legislator, allowed in his laws that there should be "brothels and prostitution." According to the laws of Lycurgus, in Sparta, stealing was protected and encouraged, punishment being administered only if one was so unskilful as to be caught in the act; weak children were exposed to the wild beasts on the mountains; and rape was frequently ordered by the citizens in order to replenish the inhabitants after a war.

In Athens, the very center of intellectual activity and culture, the lawful wife was practically relegated to the position of a slave, while the husband sought companionship with a brilliant, intellectual class of women known as hetairai; and Demosthenes, in a speech, said that every Athenian husband had his hetaira, or other wife. Lucian, on the basis of a public rumor, even charged Socrates with "lending" his wife Xanthippe to Alcibiades, his pupil; and "it is certain that the philosopher's familiarities with the learned courtesan, Aspasia, has in better times covered his name with a heavy burden of suspicion, if not of scandal." If these reports are true, perhaps, after all, Xanthippe had some cause for the irritability of temper which caused her husband so much domestic infelicity!

But Athenian society was generally corrupt. I

can not do better than to quote the words of Tefft on this point: "Think of their fine arts—their naked statuary, their lascivious paintings, their seductive poetry, their music accompanied by perfectly nude dancers, all devoted to the propagation of corrupt thoughts and practises, making such an exhibition as that of Phryne in the presence of the best society of all Greece possible. The story of this Phryne is, that, for a certain consideration, she was to divest herself of all her clothing, and, from a loftly elevation, descend slowly into the margin of the sea, in imitation of the imaginary return of Venus to her native element. Her beauty, like that of Venus, was the marvel of her generation; and this act, decked out in all the splendor of the highest Greek art and skill, so well able to fit all the accompaniments to the lewd occasion, was actually performed under the close observation of men, women, girls, and little children, who, standing along the shore, made the welkin ring to their plaudits when the feat was over."1

1 Evolution and Christianity, pp. 418, 419.

CHAPTER V.

ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF A DIVINE

REVELATION.

With the proof that all the light that is subjectively revealed in the human consciousness is not sufficient to regenerate mankind, we have established the necessity of an objective revelation; that is, a revelation made to man. We have seen that faith is blind, embracing with equal tenderness the false as well as the true; that conscience follows and is dependent on faith; and that reason has never been able to devise and enforce a perfect standard for the moral elevation of the race. Therefore man must remain in doubt and error, groping his way in darkness, unless a supernatural light from on high shine on his clouded intellect and illuminate his benighted soul. This need has been so clearly apparent that all through the ages impostors and self-deceived enthusiasts have laid claim to miraculous powers or superhuman authority in order to obligate the conscience of the people by their teachings and thus to institute new religions. The philosophers themselves admitted the force of this principle, and therefore Socrates "expressed the conviction that