to deal, were idolatry, licentiousness, materialism, and highly-developed religious feeling of a sort.

As he passed from the Piræus to the Agora, or market-place, the heart of the city, lying in the valley formed by the three noted hills, the Areopagus, Pnyx, Acropolis, and Musæum, he would soon see that the Athenians were, indeed, utterly given to idolatry. Images of the gods stood out in niches in the walls, at the corners of the streets, in all public places. Genius, no doubt, working by the cunning hand of art, had in these given material expression and permanence to ideal strength, or wisdom, or beauty, but they nevertheless told to him the sad tale of the ignorance of the living and true God. Materialism and sensual

ism were wedded to Athenian pride; and evidences of impurity and practical atheism would not unfrequently be seen in forms that could not be named. Slavery, too, assumed aspects of the most debasing and brutalizing kind. That there were many labouring after something higher, could not be doubted. Their very progress in art, their great intellectual culture, quickened all those sentiments which lie on the threshold of conscience, thereby throwing their influence over it. In order to get rest, the people multiplied the numbers of their idols, of their feast days, and temple services. But in vain! Conscience still craved, the heart still hungered, the whole spiritual nature was still

weary, and in their efforts to get peace, to break for ever this terrible unrest, they raised an altar to the UNKNOWN GOD. To meet all this, Paul preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. He spoke of Jesus as the Creator, the Redeemer, the Judge, and of the resurrection from the dead as a certainty. The leading and influential thoughts are -man the child of God, all men brethren, all men sinners and needing a Saviour, Jesus that Saviour, responsibility for belief, a final judgment, and the resurrection of the body in order to this.

All men are brethren, because all are of one blood-the same nature (ver. 26). The unity of origin of all the varieties of mankind is thus clearly taught in this expression, if we associate it with Genesis ii. 21,

25, and Matthew xix. 4-9. This subject continues to be much discussed. Its antagonism to the scheme of grace has been already pointed out in the review of the theory of pre-Adamite men. It may be safely affirmed, that while many matters connected with it still wait for scientific explanation, the very highest researches in anatomy, ethnology, and language, go directly to corroborate what is generally believed to be the biblical view of this important question. The argument from language is noticed under Genesis xi. The cuts given above indicate the typical features of each of the five sections proposed by Blumerbach ("De Generis Humani Varietate nativa," 1795). These comprise three principal varieties, namely, the Caucasian, the Ethiopian,

and the Mongul. Subordinate to these are two intermediate varieties, through which the extreme types are linked with the Caucasian or Iranian. Thus the Malay comes between the Caucasian and the Negro; the American indian links the former with the other extreme, the Mongul. The Caffre is represented along with the Negro, to indicate widely-different varieties of the Ethiopian tribe. Blumenbach's classification is based-1st, on the form of the skull; and 2nd, on the colour of the skin, hair, and eyes. It is not asserted that this scheme is free from very many objections. This notice of it as illustrative of verse 26, is introduced with the view of suggesting to the reader some of the links through which those family varieties run.

Paul preached to the Athenians the resurrection. In another place (1 Cor. xv.) he argues this question very fully, and grounds his hope on the resurrection of Christ-a fact as fully corroborated as any other stated in history. There is nothing in nature from which we can learn this grand doctrine and glorious hope. It must be revealed. It has been so, to the unspeakable comfort of all who have hope in Christ. Appeals have been made to facts in organic chemistry, with the view of establishing an argument from analogy for the resurrection, but these are only partially illustrative, and fall far below even the natural phenomena referred to by Paul in his epistles.

"Syracuse" (xxviii. 12), the capital of ancient Sicily-see Plate

XLII., figs. 3, 4.