We cannot fail to be struck with the fact that, first of all, the Apostle wished to draw the minds of his hearers, from themselves and all surrounding objects, to one great and supreme Creator and Governor of the world. This infinite Being he shows to be a distinct personal existence, separate from and superior to all things; yet one who concerns Himself intimately with the affairs of men. He is not a something vivifying and permeating all things, and forming part of the essence of all things. He is the great first cause of all, and existed before and independently of all. The Apostle implies that none of the guesses of the wisest among his hearers had reached the truth. Yet they had been feeling after Him, as men in the dark try to feel their way to light. They had shown their conviction that there was a great GOD, to the knowledge of whom they were strangers. To Him they had erected an altar calling him by his title of Unknown. Thus St Paul appeals to deep convictions impressed on their minds. At the same time, he does not shrink from showing that GOD does not require men’s help, nor love the worship of idolators; though the announcement ran counter to strong prejudices, deeply seated in the minds of his hearers. Men, he told them, are the offspring of GOD. They should therefore render him the intelligent and loving service due from children to a wise and beneficent parent. Now in this great view of truth there was presented to the Stoic much that he could agree with, and yet a great deal opposed to, or in advance of, his preconceived notions. The idea of the philosopher had been of a supreme power which was a principle rather than a person. Looking at himself, in connexion with the universe, he had not thought it impious to consider himself a very part of this divine essence, rather than a creature made by the divine power. Hence he had not a humbling sense of his nothingness in comparison with the Eternal. His philosophy rather gave him a feeling of pride, from the conviction of his individual worth and greatness, as an essential part of the great supreme. He did not see that there was a mighty Being, a self-existent _Person_, infinitely removed in power and nature from all that he has made; and that by Him men are cared for and loved, as the members of a vast family, of which he is the Creator and Father. And in saying this, I do not lose sight of the fact that some of the Stoics, at times, seem to have risen superior to their own doctrines, and to have listened to the inner voice which whispered to them of the everlasting Father. Whether it was from Aratus, or Cleanthes, that St Paul quoted, in his address to the Athenians, yet we are forcibly reminded, by his words, of the noble hymn of the second in the Stoic succession, a song of praise almost unparalleled among the writings of heathen antiquity for nobility of utterance and purity of thought. Addressing the chief of