ing passage
from Pressense to this effect. Philosophy in Greece, says Pressense, had
its place in the divine plan. It dethroned the false gods. It purified the
idea of divinity.

Cocker sums up this work of preparation done by Greek philosophy, as
seen,--

"1. In the release of the popular mind from polytheistic notions, and
the purifying and spiritualizing of the theistic idea.

"2. In the development of the theistic argument in a logical form.

"3. In the awakening and enthronement of conscience as a law of duty,
and in the elevation and purification of the moral idea.

"4. In the fact that, by an experiment conducted on the largest scale,
it demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect
ideal of moral excellence, and develop the moral forces necessary to
secure its realization.

"5. It awakened and deepened the consciousness of guilt and the desire
for redemption."[267]

The large culture of Greece was evidently adapted to Christianity. The
Jewish mind recognized no such need as that of universal culture, and this
tendency of Christianity could only have found room and opportunity among
those who had received the influence of Hellenic culture.

The points of contact between Christianity and Greek civilization are
therefore these:--

1. The character of God, considered in both as an immanent, ever-working
presence, and not merely as a creating and governing will outside the
universe.

2. The character of man, as capable of education and development, who is
not merely to obey as a servant, but to co-operate as a friend, with the
divine will, and grow up in all things.

3. The idea of duty, as a reasonable service, and not a yoke.

4. God's revelations, as coming, not only in nature, but also in inspired
men, and in the intuitions of the soul; a conception which resulted in the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

The good of polytheism was that it saw something divine in nature. By
dividing God into numberless deities, it was able to conceive of some
divine power in all earthly objects. Hence Wordsworth, complaining that
we can see little of this divinity now in nature, cries out:--

"Good God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."