Sanders' Union Fifth Reader

ness, he only delivered his own soul. But his was a mind to look and aim at more than this. He felt the splendor of the triumph there would be in leveling the wisdom and the idolatry of Athens at the foot of the Cross.

2. Animated by such feelings, we may now regard Paul, in what must have been one of the most interesting moments of even his eventful life, preparing himself on the Hill of Mars to address an auditory of Athenians on behalf of Christianity. He would feel the imposing associations of the spot on which he stood, where justice had been administered in its most awful form, by characters the most venerable, in the darkness of night, under the canopy of heaven, with the solemnities of religion, and with an authority which legal institution and public opinion had assimilated rather with the decrees of conscience and of the gods, than with the ordinary power of human tribunals.

3. He would look around on many an immortal trophy of architect and sculptor, where genius had triumphed, but triumphed only in the cause of that idolatry to which they were dedicated, and for which they existed. And beyond the city, clinging round its temples, like its inhabitants to their enshrined idols, would open on his view that lovely country, and the sublime ocean, and the serene heavens bending over them, and bearing that testimony to the universal Creator which man and man's works withheld.

4. And with all would Grecian glory be connected,the brightness of a day that was closing, and of a sun that had already set, where recollections of grandeur faded into sensations of melancholy. And he would gaze on a thronging auditory, the representatives, to his fancy, of all that had been, and of all that was; and think of the intellects with which he had to grapple, and of the hearts

in whose very core he aimed to plant the barbed arrows of conviction.

5. There was that multitude, so acute, so inquisitive, so polished, so athirst for novelty, and so impressible by eloquence; yet with whom a barbarian accent might break the charm of the most persuasive tongue; over whom their own oligarchy of orators would soon re-assert their dominion, in spite of the invasion of a stranger; and with whom sense, feeling, and habit would throw up all their barriers against the eloquence of Christianity.

6. There would be the priest, astonished at an attempt so daring; and as the speaker's design opened on his mind, anxiously, and with alternate contempt and rage, measuring the strength of the Samson who thus grasped the pillars of his temple, threatening to whelm him, his altars, and his gods, beneath their ruins. There would be the stoic, in the coldness of his pride, looking sedately down, as on a child playing with children, to see what new game was afloat, and what trick or toy was now produced for wonderment.

7. There would be the epicurean, tasting, as it were, the preacher's doctrine, to see if it promised aught of merriment; just lending enough of idle attention not to lose amusement should it offer, and venting the full explosion of his ridicule on the resurrection of the dead. There the sophist, won, perhaps, into something of an approving and complacent smile by the dexterity of Paul's introduction, but finding, as he proceeded, that this was no mere show of art, or war of words, and vibrating between the habitual love of entangling, bewildering, and insulting an opponent, and the repulsiveness which there always is to such men in the language of honest and zealous conviction.

8. There the slave, timidly crouching at a distance to

catch what stray sounds the winds might waft to him, after they had reached his master's ears, of that doctrine, so strange and blessed, of man's fraternity. And there the young and noble Roman, who had come to Athens for education,—not to sit like a humble scholar at a master's feet, but, with all the pride of Rome upon his brow, to accept what artists, poets, and philosophers could offer as their homage to the lords of earth.

9. If for a moment Paul felt as one would think man must feel at being the central object of such a scene and such an assemblage, there would rush upon his mind the majesty of Jehovah; and the words of the glorified Jesus; and the thunders that struck him to the earth on the road to Damascus; and the sense of former efforts, conflicts, and successes; and the approach of that judgment to come, whose righteousness and universality it was now his duty to announce.

10. Unappalled and collected, he began:-"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed any thing; seeing He giveth, to all, life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."*

*Acts 17th chap., 22-26th verses.