has so long distinguished them from their grave neighbours the Turks. The sound of merriment gradually died away as I left the streets behind, and ascended the solitary pathway, which, passing between the world-famed Hill and the Acropolis, leads up to the summit of the latter. Here I turned off to the right, and passing across the vacant site of the Agora, found myself in a few moments at the foot of a flight of steps, cut deeply in the stony side of the hill. At the top of these steps, and also hewn in the rock, is a level platform, with a stone bench around it; steps, bench, and all, picturesquely corroded by the tooth of time, but yet plainly indicating their original destination. By those steps, Paul had been led up from the Agora, or market-place below, where he was disputing with the Epicureans and Stoics. On that bench sat the Council of Areopagus, before whom he was summoned; grouped on the rocks around, were the listening philosophers, with doubt and derision on their countenances; and on that platform undoubtedly stood the Apostle himself, while he delivered to them his memorable oration.

The place was quite solitary; only a few goats browsing quietly about the Agora below. It was almost startling to find oneself alone, and seated on such a spot. The moon rising over the lofty crags of the Acropolis and the wrecks of the Propylea, shone brightly upon the rocky platform, defining, in the most telling manner, its every chink and crevice. The Agora was sunk in the shadow cast from the Acropolis. Everything around in the immediate neighbourhood was still and solemn; but lights gleamed in the windows of the town below, and strains of revelry rose from it fitfully, and died away again. The Gulf of Salamis was silvered over, and the dark grove of the Academy and the encircling mountains loomed faintly in the distant moonlight.

There is no spot about the identity of which there can be less doubt than this, and in none, perhaps, is so little effort required to figure the minutest details of the incident connected with it.

106

PAUL ON MARS' HILL.

Paul had just landed at the Piræus on his arrival from Berea, and after passing through the careless crowd thronging the long connecting road, had entered the city by its seaward gate. Athens, although she had then lost her political independence, and become subject to Rome, yet retained the magnificent monuments for which she had become renowned; but these were all of them connected with that polytheism which, undermined and tottering as it was, had been carried to such a pitch, that it was proverbially said, "it was easier in Athens to find a god than a man." On all sides arose temples and votive altars, with their crowds of worshippers; "the whole city seemed given up to idolatry." Though the great masters of the schools were departed, the porticos of the market-place were still the resort of the philosophers; while everywhere swarmed the volatile and lively populace, who "spent all their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." The spirit of the Apostle was stirred within him-he mingled in this restless throng, and began to preach Christ to a curious and eager auditory. While thus engaged, he encountered some of the Epicureans and Stoics. "What will this babbler say?" demanded some. "He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods," was the derisive reply of others. They then hurried him up the stone flight of steps to the summit of Mars' Hill, where the council of Areopagus were at the time in session.

With eager curiosity, not unmingled with a shade of contempt, they then demanded of the Apostle, "May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is?" It was now that Paul,

66

standing in the midst of the Hill," and pointing, as he spoke, to the lofty temples of the Acropolis, shining with gold and silver, and the great statue of Minerva, arrayed in all but superhuman beauty, which towered above their heads; declared to them, for the first time, the God "who dwelleth not in temples made with hands," nor "is like unto gold and silver, or stone graven by art or man's device" as the vulgar weakly believed,-whose nature