The one was the reverence for antiquity. The voice of the past sounded with a fuller note than that of the present. It came from the age of the heroes who had become divinities. It expressed the national legends and the current mythology, the primitive types of noble life and the simple maxims of awakening reflection, the “wisdom of the ancients,” which has sometimes itself taken the place of religion. The other was the belief in inspiration. With the glamour of writing was blended the glamour of rhythm and melody. When the gods spoke, they spoke in verse.[61] The poets sang under the impulse of a divine enthusiasm. It was a god who gave the words: the poet was but the interpreter.[62] The belief was not merely popular, but was found in the best minds of the imperial age. “Whatever wise and true words were spoken in the world about God and the universe, came into the souls of men not without the Divine will and intervention through the agency of divine and prophetic men.”[63] “To the poets sometimes, I mean the very ancient poets, there came a brief utterance from the Muses, a kind of inspiration of the divine nature and truth, like a flash of light from an unseen fire.”[64] The combination of these three feelings, the mystery of writing, the reverence for antiquity, the belief in inspiration, tended to give the writings of the ancient poets a unique value. It lifted them above the common limitations of place and time and circumstance. The verses of Homer were not simply the utterances of a particular person with a particular meaning for a particular time. They had a universal validity. They were the voice of an undying wisdom. They were the Bible of the Greek races.[65]