CARTOON VII. PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. No other spot on earth has been the scene of such varied and brilliant displays of intellect, as Athens. It was here that every noble pursuit of the human mind—legislation, poetry, oratory, art-was, in a comparatively short space of time, and starting from the lowest point, carried to a degree of perfection which has since been reached but by few competitors, and by them in no more than a few departments. But the most honourable testimony to the genius of Athens is borne, notwithstanding all their imperfections, by her schools of philosophy. It is doubtless true, that each of the systems taught in them has its peculiar vices and imperfections-imperfections universally incident to the efforts of the human mind, in this most difficult branch of enquiry-vices derived from the characters, moral and intellectual, of those individuals with whom the respective sects originated. When, however, we consider, what great difficulties lay in their way, and, especially, through what long, circuitous, and polluting mediums, they received those few broken rays from the fountain of revealed truth, to which they were indebted, we shall find reason rather to admire and applaud, than to despise or censure those profoundly ingenious thinkers, and shall be thankful to that all-ruling Providence, which supplied, by their means, even so much light in the midst of heathen darkness, though, indeed, a light "Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars," until the day dawned, and the day-star arose." Yet, however entitled to our applause, as the product of well-intentioned and high-thoughted minds, to our gratitude, as containing such a substitute for revelation as was of temporary use, especially in preparing the heathen for the gospel dispensation, it ought not to surprise us that those systems were found, in the persons of the leading philosophers of the time, to oppose themselves to it at its first introduction. Every description of pride and prejudice, national, sectarian, and private, would naturally be excited in their favour, as assailed by a code of faith and morals, laying claim to a superior source and requiring exclusive adoption, but coming to them from a distant and despised region, and promulged by a poor unattended missionary. Nevertheless, when it came to be generally known in Athens, that a philosophical teacher, calling himself by an unknown name, had come among them from the Hebrews, and was employed in discoursing 66 strange things" to the devout emigrants of his own. nation, and to some persons of the lower orders among the native inhabitants, the apostle readily obtained a hearing before the rich also and learned. The restless intellect of the Athenians, no longer occupied with political affairs of interest, eagerly attached itself to every new subject of enquiry,* especially in matters of religion, to which they were much given.† The apostle was in a short time en * "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or else to hear some new thing." Acts, xvii. 21. † The word dɛioidaipoveotépovs, applied by St. Paul to his Athenian hearers, was not designed by him to bear an offensive or unfavourable sense: it only means, that they were more devoted than others to religious worship. Had the word imported |