belief expressed, and controls the practice. The Greeks were a praying people.

Plato says: "Every man of sense, before beginning an important work, will ask the help of the gods." Therefore, he himself before commencing the Timeans, says: “Since I am about to speak of the nature of the universe, I must first invoke the gods, that I may say what is reasonable and true." Plutarch informs us that the great orator, Pericles, before he began to speak, always prayed to the gods for power to do a good work by his oration. Homer represents Nestor as praying for success of the ambassadors to Achilles; and Ulysses prays before going to the Trojan camp. Priam prays before going to ask for the body of Hector.

Lucien speaks of Demosthenes praying with his hand on his mouth (silent prayer of course) before his speeches in the Greek courts. Xenophon prays before each day's march during the retreat of the ten thousand.

Seneca, the great father of moral philosophy outside of revelation, says of his nation: "We worship and adore the Framer and Former of the Universe; Governor, Disposer, Keeper-Him on whom all things depend; Mind and Spirit of the World-from whom all things spring, by whose spirit we live; the Divine Spirit diffused through all; God all powerful; God always with us; God above all other gods; Thee we worship and adore." This seems to be a statement of the national faith, belief and worship of the Greeks at the age of Seneca, and what can be better.

Again Epictetus, says: "Dare to lift thine eyes to God and say, use me for what Thou wilt. I agree and am of the same mind with Thee. I refuse nothing that seems good to Thee. Lead me where Thou wilt and I will go."

Anaxagoras, a distinguished philosopher, was one of the first to teach the doctrine of one supreme being-of one passionless divine mind, who formed the world out of chaos.1

But at this time Pantheism had a strong hold upon the national mind (so easy is it to go from three gods to an indefinite number) and Anaxagoras was accused of impiety to the gods, and Socrates, one of the noblest of the race, suffered martyrdom while in the full belief in one God and a blissful immortality. (About 445 B. C.)

It was said at one time that it was easier to find a god than 'Ten Great Religions, p. 23.

a man in Athens, so abundant were the statues erected to the gods. That they were an essentially religious people none can deny. Their error, if any, was a too great devotion to principles and not persons. That true worship is in the spirit, and not in the number of deities adored.

They were true sons of the East, keenly sensitive in their conceptions and theories, and joyous in their expressions of praise. Their services were bright, and their public worship partook of the nature of joyous festivals, bringing down their gods to enjoy their feasts of praise. They believed less in the sacrificial theories and prayers of penitence, and more in praise and thanksgiving.

Man, beauty and development characterized their highest efforts, and these being the gifts of the gods, in their greatest perfection lay in the highest attainments of the intellect and the greatest praise of the gods. Man was the chiefest work of God and in man's perfection lay His greatest glory.

This belief produced the best possible efforts permitted by their environments. It joined their worship and their every work, and produced the best possible effects. Their type of life was natural, and developed along natural principles, showing an original and all predominating result of original forms and combinations of power and beauty in architecture, art and literature.

Surrounded by barbarians on every hand, whose highest conception of national life and power were the gratification of passion, appetite and the lusts of power, by the plunder of their weaker victims, they reared a civilization which for extended power, beauty, splendor and brilliancy in all planes of thought and action, has never before or since been equalled or surpassed. They builded a tower of gold, amid the crumbling monuments of stone, iron and clay that had been, and were around them, which still shines with the brilliancy of the sun, and draws all nations to its warmth and light for inspiration in poetry, art, literature and philosophy, and all that elevates and beautified the life of the race.

Their location was favorable to a rapid and strong development. Their soil was poor, and their wealth came by the hardy routes of commerce over the seas, and captured by the valor of their arms. Their necessities in their formative periods compelled the vigorous action of all their powers of life, of careful thought and well-laid plans. Thus was

developed a hardy, bold, industrious and persevering race; strong in physical origin, made active in intellection by the friction of other nations, and sensitive to all that was beautiful and strong, they worshiped every power that could aid in their physical, mental and spiritual advancement. In their better days they were on the crest of the advancing wave of discovery and progress. Very conspicuous for their patriotism and proud of their achievements, every energy was put forth to reach the summit of national distinction and preeminence.

To the earlier civilizations of the world they occupied much the same relative position that our nation does to the nations of to-day. Both founded by mixed races; both with somewhat similar environments. We may hope at no distant era to reach somewhat of the glorious position they held in their age, and possibly transmit something of their glorious achievements to our posterity.

With them, as with us, the individual was the unit of power. Their theories of growth were natural and scientific, and, therefore, correct; and their civilization was characterized by brilliancy, power and principles of immortality.

"Know thyself" was the key that unlocked the doors to individual and national greatness. Thorough knowledge of self begets self efforts, self reform, self culture, self reliance and self control. This practiced by the people gave them a strong, full-orbed and beautiful individual and national life. They commenced at the bottom with the physical man, and by a system never yet equalled or surpassed, produced a race of men and women that gave the most favorable opportunities for the fullest development of the physical, the intellectual and the spiritual powers of the race. Their first study was of man and his capacities, instead of the mysteries of the unknowable, or even of the gods themselves.

With all the intellectual culture that the most careful training could produce, every possible theory of speculative, mental and moral philosophy was investigated with a commendable patience, and with all the subtility of intellectual acumen that the unrivalled wisdom of that age had hitherto produced. And yet they were more practical than speculative, and held fast only to that which could be proved possible and useful by reasonable demonstration.

The thusness of the where, the previousness of the yet to

come, and the thinness of the states of the inconceivable, that characterized some of the modern schools of would-be philosophers, did not trouble these grand old Grecian investigators. While their civilization permitted much that seems gross, and cruel, and of a descending grade, yet this was the necessary result of their barbaric environments, and in spite of the grand, pure and heroic spirit that animated their leaders and characterized their national life. No bird ever arose from the earth to wing the air without some specks of dust clinging to its wings; nor nymph from the sea without some slime from the waves to soil her beauty.

Perfection in individual or national life is not of earth, else the earth would need no heaven and no possibilities of immortality.

ANTIQUITY-CHRONOLOGY.

The religion of the Rig-Veda was the earliest form known in India, and was that of the Aryans.

The Hindu believes them inspired and to have existed before all time. This system had spread over all or nearly all India, and must have existed a long time. This system was overcome by Brahmanism, which was established in the sixth century B. C. Between the downfall of the Vedic and the full recognition of Brahmanism, there was a long series of Brahmanical developments toward a final system. The code of Manu was compiled in the fifth century B. C. The Brahmins ascribe these laws to Divine origin and to the first Manu, or Aryan man, thirty million years ago. We can, therefore, conclude that the Aryan civilization and religion is at least seven thousand years old and probably much more.

The Chinese authentic history commences with Confucius about 5,000 years B. C., or nearly contemporary with the Aryan civilization in India. China had a civil service and examined officials for her service 1115 B. C., in music, archery, horsemanship, writing and arithmetic. It more than included a liberal education. The degrees were three: The first, budding talent; the second, deserving promotion, and the third, fit for office.

The first King of Egypt was Menes, supposed to be Misriam, son of Ham, about 2500 to 2700 B. C. Manetho places thirty dynasties before the Macedonian conquest B. C.

331, of 5,000 years. The era of Menes is placed as high as 5735 and as low as 2429 B. C. by different authorities.

Alexander conquered Egypt 323 B. C., and also acquired Palestine, Phoenecia, Cyprus and a part of Syria and Cyrenia, and conquered Persia about 322 B. C. Herodotus, 450 B. C., states that the priests claimed an antiquity for Egypt at that time of eleven thousand years.

The Assyrian Empire, including Babylon, was founded B. C. 1270, some say by Nimrod, grandson of Noah, 2300 B. C.

Greece was settled 2758 B. C. The oldest traditional king of a part of Argos was Aeglialus, B. C. 2089. Italy was settled by emigrants from Greece 1298 B. C.

Rome was founded 752 B. C.

Ottoman Empire was composed of Nomads, and had control of Central Asia B. C. 1299 to 2000.

The deluge, 3159 B. C. Abraham, 2082 B. C. Exodus, 1615 B. C. From creation to deluge, 1651 A. M.

Schmidt says in his manual of ancient history that the civilization of Greece became the model of that of Rome, but was incomparably more refined and broader. He says the Greeks were distinguished by a happy physical organization, by an extraordinary acumen, flexibility and fertility of mind. It will be seen by these dates that the Indian civilization in all probability antedates all others. That the Grecian is at least as old as the Egyptian, and antedates Rome by nearly two thousand years. This chronology, in connection with the language and religion and laws, seems conclusive of the origin of the Greeks.

Prof. Albert Reville in his lectures in treating of the civilizations of Central America and Mexico, says he sees no ground for the assumption that prehistoric America owes anything to Europe or Asia. And on this head he insists that "given human nature anywhere, its religious development is reared on the same basis and passes through the same phases." This he illustrates in the wonderful civilization of Central America and Mexico. While we should not all of us fully agree with him in this broad statement, yet it is pregnant with truth.

This statement is not applicable to the Greeks, as their antecedents are easily found in well-established systems of religious faith, language and well-advanced civilizations.