Not less repugnant to the Hebrew was the Hellenic moral temperament as mirrored in literature, in social life, and in public worship--that temperament which, without being altogether free from pessimism, melancholy, and discontent, yet finds its most natural expression in a healthy enjoyment of life and an equally healthy horror of death. “I would rather be a poor man’s serf on earth than king among the dead!” sighs Achilles in Hades, and the sentiment is one which his whole race has echoed through the ages, and which, despite nineteen centuries of Christianity, is still heard in the folk-songs of modern Greece. The Greek saw the world as it is, and, upon the whole, found it very good. He tasted its pleasures with moderation and bore its pains with a good grace. He perceived beauty in all things; adoring the highest and idealising the meanest. Even the shrill song of the humble grasshopper held sweet music for the Greek. He revelled in the loveliness and colour of life. He was inspired by the glory of the human form. He extolled the majesty of man. The Hebrew mind was nursed by meditation; the Hellenic drew its nourishment from contemplation. Nature was the Greek’s sole guide in taste as well as in conduct; from nature he learnt the canons of the beautiful as well as the laws of right and wrong. Hence no country has produced greater poets than Greece, or fewer saints. How could this view of things, so sane and yet so earthy, be acceptable to a race oppressed by the sense of human suffering as the fruit of human sin? “Serve the Lord with joy; come before him with singing,” urged the Psalmist in a moment of optimistic cheerfulness. But it was only for a moment.[6] The true note of Hebraism is struck in another text: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” The Greek understood the meaning of the sad refrain; but he did not allow it to depress him. To the Greek life was a joyous reality, or at the worst an interesting problem; to the Jew a bad dream, or at the best an inscrutable mystery. To the Hebrew mind the sun that shines in the sky and the blossoms that adorn the earth are at most but pale symbols of Divine Love, pledges for a bliss which is not of this world. And yet Socrates emptied the cup of death with a smile and a jest, where Job would have filled the world with curses and bitter lamentation. Laughter came as spontaneously to the Greek as breath, and the two things died together. The Jew could not laugh, and would not allow any one else to do so. The truth is that the Greek never grew old, and the Jew was never young.