k and white sheep, and whereever any one laid down they erected an
altar to an unknown god, and offered sacrifices thereon. Then he announced
as his central and main theme the Most High God, maker of heaven and
earth, spiritual, not needing to receive anything from man, but giving him
all things. Next, he proclaimed the doctrine of universal human
brotherhood. God had made all men of one blood; their varieties and
differences, as well as their essential unity, being determined by a
Divine Providence. But all were equally made to seek him, and in their
various ways to find him, who is yet always near to all, since all are his
children. God is immanent in all men, says Paul, as their life. Having
thus stated the great unities of faith and points of agreement, he
proceeds only in the next instance to the oppositions and criticisms; in
which he opposes, not polytheism, but idolatry; though not blaming them
severely even for that. Lastly, he speaks of Jesus, as a man ordained by
God to judge the world and govern it in righteousness, and proved by his
resurrection from the dead to be so chosen.

Here we observe, in this speech, monotheism came in contact with
polytheism, and the two forms of human religion met,--that which makes man
the child of God, and that which made the gods the children of men.

The result we know. The cry was heard on the sandy shore of Eurotas and in
green Cythnus.--"Great Pan is dead." The Greek humanities, noble and
beautiful as they were, faded away before the advancing steps of the
Jewish peasant, who had dared to call God his Father and man his brother.
The parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan were stronger
than Homer's divine song and Pindar's lofty hymns. This was the religion
for man. And so it happened as Jesus had said: "My sheep hear my voice and
follow me." Those who felt in their hearts that Jesus was their true
leader followed him.

The gods of Greece, being purely human, were so far related to
Christianity. That, too, is a human religion; a religion which makes it
its object to unfold man, and to cause all to come to the stature of
perfect men. Christianity also showed them God in the form of man; God
dwelling on the earth; God manifest in the flesh. It also taught that the
world was full of God, and that all places and persons were instinct with
a secret divinity. Schiller (as translated by Coleridge) declares that
LOVE was the source of these Greek creations:--