In fact, the Athenians, under a free government, had learned what it was to live—had imbibed from their education the feeling, that if deprived of such a government, if reduced to bow beneath the yoke of despotism, to die, if the Apostle’s words may without blame be thus applied, would be gain. It will readily be conceived that the citizens of such a state felt an impassioned attachment to their country,—an attachment unintelligible to persons living under any other form of civil polity. Athens was the cradle of their freedom and their happiness. There was a religion in the love they bore it; they had, according to mythical traditions, which they believed, sprung on that spot from the bosom of the earth. It stood, therefore to them in the dearest of all relations, being, to sum up everything holy in one word,—their MOTHER; and they embodied their profound veneration for the sacred spot in every fond, every endearing, epithet their matchless language could supply. Even the gods, in their patriotic partiality, were believed to look on Athens as the most lovely, no less than the most glorious city on the broad earth,—an idea which they expressed by representing Poseidon and Athena contending for the honour of becoming their tutelar divinity. To persons so thinking no calamity short of the entire extinction of their race could appear so intolerable as beholding that sacred city, with the tombs of their ancestors, the sanctuaries of their gods, the venerable but immoveable symbols of their faith and mythological history, delivered over to be trodden down or obliterated with sword and fire by barbarian slaves, strong only from their countless numbers. Yet even to this did the love of freedom reconcile the Athenian people. They abandoned their holy place, and, embarking on board the fleet with their wives and children, took refuge in Trœzen and Salamis. History has described in touching language the circumstances of this event, than which it has nothing more pathetic to record save, peradventure, the carrying away of Judea and her children into captivity. I will not disturb its archaic simplicity. No eloquence could heighten its effect. It goes at once to the heart and rouses our noblest sympathies. “The embarkation of the people of Athens was a very affecting scene. What pity, what admiration of the firmness of those men who, sending their parents and families to a distant place, unmoved with their cries and embraces, had the fortitude to leave the city and embark for Salamis! What greatly heightened the distress was the number of citizens whom, on account of their extreme old age, they were forced to leave behind. And some emotions of tenderness were due even to the tame domestic animals which, running to the shore with lamentable howlings, expressed their affection and regret for the persons by whom they had been fed. One of these, a dog belonging to Xanthippos, the father of Pericles, unwilling