"I do not now discuss the moral titles of the Olympian scheme; what I dwell upon is its intense humanity, alike in its greatness and its littleness, its glory and its shame. As the cares and joys of human life, so the structure of society below is reflected, by the wayward wit of man, on heaven above. Though the names and fundamental traditions of the several deities were wholly or in great part imported from abroad, their characters, relations, and attributes passed under a Hellenizing process, which gradually marked off for them special provinces and functions, according to laws which appear to have been mainly original and indigenous, and to have been taken by analogy from the division of labor in political society. The Olympian society has its complement of officers and servants, with their proper functions. He-phæs'tus (or Vulcan) moulds the twenty golden thrones which move automatically to form the circle of the council of the gods, and builds for each of his brother deities a separate palace in the deep-folded recesses of the mighty mountain. Music and song are supplied by Apollo and the Muses; Gan-y-me'de and He'be are the cup-bearers, Hermes and Iris are the messengers; but Themis, in whom is impersonated the idea of deliberation and of relative rights, is the summoner of the Great Assembly of the gods in the Twentieth Iliad, when the great issue of the Trojan war is to be determined." [Footnote: Address to the Edinburgh University, November 3, 1865.] But, however prone the gods were to evil passions, and subject to human frailties, they were not believed to approve (in men) of the vices in which they themselves indulged, but were, on the contrary, supposed to punish violations of justice and humanity, and to reward the brave and virtuous. We learn that they were to be appeased by libations and sacrifice; and their aid, not only in great undertakings, but in the common affairs of life, was to be obtained by prayer and supplication. For instance, in the Ninth Book of HOMER'S Iliad the aged Phoe'nix--warrior and sage--in a beautiful allegory personifying "Offence" and "Prayers," represents the former as robust and fleet of limb, outstripping the latter, and hence roaming over the earth and doing immense injury to mankind; but the Prayers, following after, intercede with Jupiter, and, if we avail ourselves of them, repair the evil; but if we neglect them we are told that the vengeance of the wrong shall overtake us. Thus, Phoenix says of the gods,