es in beautiful harmony, and then Christianity, taking up
the opposition between the divine and human, was to unite both in one,
and show how it was necessary that both should co-operate to prepare for
the appearance of itself and the unfolding of what it contains."[859]
During the period of Greek philosophy which preceded the coming of
Christ, human reason, unfolding itself from beneath, had aspired after
that knowledge of divine things which is from above. It had felt within
itself the deep-seated consciousness of God--the sporadic revelation of
Him "who is not far from any one of us"--the immanent thought of that
Being "in whom we live and move and are," and it had striven by analysis
and definition to attain a more distinct and logical apprehension. The
heart of man had been stirred with "the feeling after God"--the longing
for a clearer sense of the divine, and had struggled to attain, by
abstraction or by ecstasy, a more immediate communion with God. Man had
been conscious of an imperative obligation to conform to the will of the
great Supreme, and he sought to interpret more clearly the utterances of
conscience as to what duty was. He had felt the sense of sin and guilt,
and had endeavored to appease his conscience by expiatory offerings, and
to deliver himself from the power of sin by intellectual culture and
moral discipline. And surely no one, at all familiar with the history of
that interesting epoch in the development of humanity, will have the
hardihood to assert that no steps were taken in the right direction, and
no progress made towards the distant goal of human desire and hope. The
language, the philosophy, the ideals of moral beauty and excellence, the
noble lives and nobler utterances of the men who stand forth in history
as the representatives of Greek civilization, all attest that their
noble aspiration and effort did not end in ignominious failure and utter
defeat. It is true they fell greatly beneath the realization of even
their own moral ideals, and they became painfully conscious of their
moral weakness, as men do even in Christian times. They learned that,
neither by intellectual abstraction, nor by ecstasy of feeling, could
they lift themselves to a living, conscious fellowship with God. The
sense of guilt was unrelieved by expiations, penances, and prayers. And
whilst some cultivated a proud indifference, a Stoical apathy, and
others sank down to Epicurean ease and pleasure, there was a noble f