a Greek sentence could
emanate, from no source so naturally as the gay, beauty-loving sons of
the Hellenes, whose conceptions of beauty are the ideals for all time;
whose flexible wit needed, as it created, the vehicle of its
communication; and whose philosophical acumen could flash out in no
speech less capable of manifesting delicate shades of thought.

What is thus true of language in general has a concentrated truth in the
forms of speech used in greetings. Let us compare these in a few
languages, ancient and modern, and see if the fact be not so. We will
begin with the most familiar, as it is the best and most enduring, type
of the Semitic race--the Hebrew. The history of the Jews--at any rate as
it is set forth in their own sacred Books--is pre-eminently the history
of a race singled out by an overruling Power for the education of
_conscience_. To this bear witness the laws of the Two Tables, and most
of those other laws, purely ceremonial, whose apparent triviality in
some particulars is at any rate a mode of symbolizing what was the main
object of the Lawgiver--keeping the heart and conscience pure. To this
bear witness the indignant denunciations of their prophets, as well as
the impassioned pleadings to return to a better mind and keep the
conscience unaccused--to "do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with God." To this bear witness the plaints--the like of which no other
ancient literature furnishes--of their royal Psalmist, the type of what
was best and noblest in his race--plaints which mourned not so much
outward adversity or physical suffering as the pain of a hurt
conscience, a realization of guilt which threw a pall over all that else
was bright--plaints which, as that secluded education in Palestine
became handed down to posterity and diffused wherever the Old Testament
found its way, have been adopted by humanity as the _de profundis_ of
all hearts conscious of guilt. And what was the Hebrew's salutation as
he met his brother or his friend? "Peace!" The inner life of the race
could not be more clearly shown by volumes.

With the Greek it was different. His heaven and his earth were
counterparts of each other. Even his Zeus Terpikeraunos seemed fonder of
other occupations than hurling his flashing bolts. The Father of gods
and men disdained not (when nectar and ambrosia perhaps began to surfeit
him) to lead the dwellers of Olympus on festive journeys to the
"blameless Ethiops," and there pass