With a polite wave of the hand, he began to speak in the Greek which he had learned as a boy at Tarsus. “Athenian men,” he said, “you are very religious people. I see altars everywhere and you have filled your city with objects of worship. One strange thing I noticed as I walked about. I saw an altar on which was this inscription, ‘To God Unknown.’ That means that you have not quite found God yet. Let me tell you about Him, for I know. He made the world. He made all things above and all things beneath. But He does not dwell in temples. He does not need the things which men make with their hands, idols and images and statues. He has given life and breath to all living beings. He has planned the universe and put His wisdom into all the parts of it. He has arranged everything for men. He expects them to become one great family. He has put something into men’s hearts which makes them seek after Him and which makes them try to feel their way, as blind persons do, to find Him if they can. But He is never far away from anybody. He is near, within reach. We live in God. We move in Him. All our life is flooded with Him, and without Him we could not live at all. Your poets knew that. They have tried to tell you about it. One of them in his poem says that we are ‘offspring of God’—we have come from Him. If that is true, as your poet says it is, you ought not to think that God is like silver or gold or marble, or that He can be carved and made into a statue. All that is childlike and is the result of ignorance. When men were in the child stage and did not know any better, God excused them and waited for them to learn. But now that you are older and wiser, there is no excuse. God expects everybody now to live differently, to change their lives, and to prepare for the great beyond. He has sent His Son to show them how to do it, and He has raised Him from the dead.” They did not listen very well and when they found that the Resurrection was not a new goddess they were not interested any longer. They drifted away to look for something that was more exciting and they politely told Paul that they would hear him again some other time. One man who was a senator and one woman, who had listened eagerly, were convinced that this was the truth about God and they believed and accepted Paul’s way of life. But Athens was not ready yet for the great message and so the chance went by! In a few days Paul sailed away, out of that wonderful harbour, looking back on the beautiful city that had missed its opportunity, and landed in the great seaport city of Corinth, at that time the capital of the province of Achaia. [Illustration: MARS HILL—ATHENS] XVII CORINTH AND EPHESUS