as God, neither were thankful; but in their reasonings they went astray after vanities, and their hearts, being void of wisdom, were filled with darkness. Calling themselves wise, they were turned into fools, and changed the glory of the imperishable God for idols graven in the likeness of perishable man, or of birds, and beasts, and creeping things,...and they bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced and worshipped the things made rather than the Maker, who is blessed forever. Amen."[112] [Footnote 112: Rom. i. 21-25, Conybeare and Howson's translation.] The brief and elliptical report of Paul's address on Mars' Hill must therefore, in all fairness, be interpreted in the light of his more carefully elaborated statements in the Epistle to the Romans. And when Paul intimates that the Athenians "knew not God," we can not understand him as saying they had _no_ knowledge, but that their knowledge was imperfect. They did not know God as Creator, Father, and Ruler; above all, they did not know him as a pardoning God and a sanctifying Spirit. They had not that knowledge of God which purifies the heart, and changes the character, and gives its possessor eternal life. The apostle clearly and unequivocally recognizes this truth, that the idea of God is connatural to the human mind; that in fact there is not to be found a race of men upon the face of the globe utterly destitute of some idea of a Supreme Being. Wherever human reason has had its normal and healthful development, it has spontaneously and necessarily led the human mind to the recognition of a God. The Athenians were no exception to this general law. They believed in the existence of one supreme and eternal Mind, invisible, incomprehensible, infeffable--"the unknown God." 2. The Athenians had also that consciousness of dependence upon God which is the foundation of all the primary religious emotions. When the apostle affirmed that "in God we live, and move, and have our being," he uttered the sentiments of many, if not all, of his hearers, and in support of that affirmation he could quote the words of their own poets, for we are also his offspring; [113] and, as his offspring, we have a derived and a dependent being. Indeed, this consciousness of dependence is analogous to the feeling which is awakened in the heart of a child when its parent is first manifested to its opening mind as the giver of those things which it immediately needs, as its continual protector, and as the preserver of its life. The moment a man becomes conscious of his own personality, that moment he becomes conscious of some relation to another personality, to which he is subject, and on which he depends.[114] [Footnote 113: "Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball; All need his aid; his power sustains us all, _For we his offspring are_." Aratus, "The Phænomena," book v. p. 5.