should exclaim with enthusiasm, "Let philosophers know, that faith is not without wisdom; the evangelist does not Platonize, but Plato evangelized." The mythical beings of Grecian theology display in their beautiful but ineffectual imagery the first efforts of cultivated minds to communicate with nature and her God. They resemble the flowers which fancy strewed before the youthful steps of Psyche when she first set out in pursuit of the immortal object of her love. The parable of the Syrens teems with valuable moral instruction. They dwelt in fair and lovely islands, full of beauty, and through whose leafy alcoves moved a perpetual loveliness. On the tops of tall rocks sat the enchantresses, pouring their tender and ravishing music on the ears of passing mortals, till they turned their prows thitherward, and rushed into the destruction to which the deceitful song was a fatal prelude. Two by their wisdom and piety escaped. Ulysses caused his arms to be bound to the mast, and the ears of his company to be filled with wax, with special orders to his mariners that they should not loose him even though he desired it. But Orpheus, disdaining to be so bound, with sweet melody went by, singing praises to the gods, thus outsounding the melody of the Syrens, and so escaped. The most influential teachers among the Greeks declared the inutility of profuse legislation, and taught that "the halls should not be filled with legal tablets, but the soul with the image of righteousness." They sought less to guard the citizen by force and fear than to fortify him with a sense of his duty and its dignity. Parental authority was sustained by legislative sanction, as well as by popular customs, and even up to the first steps of public life was constantly guarded by the elders; but the principal intent was ever to kindle filial esteem into the potency of living law, to illuminate progressive youth in the path of virtue and of fame. Sound morals were recognized as the only sure foundation of republican freedom, and the general watchfulness over this constituted the spirit of ancient religion, and the origin of free states. To such an extent did parental influence and pious example, rather than arbitrary statutes and severe punishments, prevail at Athens, that the youth generally were moral and temperate; despite their national inflammability, the most authentic records affirm, that both in domestic and public life they remained sober and moral, until broken down by the interference of hostile power. Following the defeat of Cheronea, the change in the Greek character was rapid. The guiding stars of literature and art were lost in clouds; and morals, which had attained a splendid maturity, lost both strength and hue.