he spirit of
Greek piety. There is no asceticism in Greek religion; the god is
represented as a beautiful human person, and his worshippers appear
before him naked, in the fulness of their youthful beauty and of
their well-trained vigour, and offer him their strength and skill in
highest exercise;--the whole city, or a crowd much larger than the
city, rejoicing in the spectacle.

Thus does Greek religion enlist in its service all the arts, and
increase as they increase. At this period irrational manifestations
of piety tend to disappear, human sacrifice and the worship of
animals are heard of afterwards only in remote quarters. The religion
which now prevails is a bright and happy self-identification with a
being conceived as a type of human beauty and excellence, by being as
far as possible beautiful oneself, creating beautiful objects,
composing beautiful verse, training the body to its highest pitch of
strength and agility, and displaying its powers in manly contests.
This conception of religion, for a short time realised in Greece,
still haunts the mind as a vision which once seen can never be
forgotten. No one whose eyes have opened to that vision can regard
any religious acts in which the effort after harmony and beauty forms
no part, as other than degraded and unworthy.

Zeus and Apollo.--It is impossible here to enter specially on the
worship of the individual gods. Two of the gods, however, the same
who even in Homer stand above the level of the rest, still maintain
that superiority. Zeus draws to himself more and more all the
attributes of pure deity; his name comes more and more to stand
simply for "God," as if there were no other. He is the father of gods
and men; goodness and love are natural to him. He is the supreme
Ruler and Disposer, whose word is fate and whose ways pious thought
feels called to justify; but he is also the Saviour, to whom every
one may appeal. He is the source of all wisdom; all revelations come
from him. The other god who occupies a marked position is Apollo, the
god of light and the prophet of his father Zeus. His oracle at Delphi
was the most important in Greece; it was held to be the centre of the
earth, and was a meeting-place for Greeks from every quarter. His
priests exercised through the oracle a great influence on Greek life,
and as their god required strict purity and truthfulness and was the
inspirer of every kind of art and of none but noble purposes, the
worship of Apo