y gathered.]

No wonder, then, that as Paul wandered amid these scenes "his spirit was
stirred in him." He burned with holy zeal to maintain the honor of the
true and only God, whom now he saw dishonored on every side. He was
filled with compassion for those Athenians who, notwithstanding their
intellectual greatness, had changed the glory of God into an image made
in the likeness of corruptible man, and who really worshipped the
creature _more_ than the Creator. The images intended to symbolize the
invisible perfections of God were usurping the place of God, and
receiving the worship due alone to him. We may presume the apostle was
not insensible to the beauties of Grecian art. The sublime architecture
of the Propylaea and the Parthenon, the magnificent sculpture of Phidias
and Praxiteles, could not fail to excite his wonder. But he remembered
that those superb temples and this glorious statuary were the creation
of the pagan spirit, and devoted to polytheistic worship. The glory of
the supreme God was obscured by all this symbolism. The creatures formed
by God, the symbols of his power and presence in nature, the ministers
of his providence and moral government, were receiving the honor due to
him. Over all this scene of material beauty and aesthetic perfection
there rose in dark and hideous proportions the errors and delusions and
sins against the living God which Polytheism nurtured, and unable any
longer to restrain himself, he commenced to "reason" with the crowds of
Athenians who stood beneath the shadows of the plane-trees, or lounged
beneath the porticoes that surrounded the Agora. Among these groups of
idlers were mingled the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, who
"encountered" Paul. The nature of these "disputations" may be easily
conjectured, The opinions of these philosophers are even now familiarly
known: they are, in one form or another, current in the literature of
modern times. Materialism and Pantheism still "encounter" Christianity.
The apostle asserted the personal being and spirituality of one supreme
and only God, who has in divers ways revealed himself to man, and
therefore may be "known." He proclaimed that Jesus is the fullest and
most perfect revelation of God--the _only_ "manifestation of God in the
flesh." He pointed to his "resurrection" as the proof of his superhuman
character and mission to the world. Some of his hearers were disposed to
treat him with contempt; they represented him as an igno