THE clouds are low thick and heavy, and the rain is falling fast; but the time of our departure has arrived, we must start. In one hour after we set foot on deck, our gallant ship is gracefully gliding over the smooth waters of the Sea of Marmora. Constantinople, the city of Constantine the Great, soon fades from our view, and we are again “rocked in the cradle of the deep.”

The night brings welcome rest. I am up with the morning. About sunrise we pass Mount Olympus, in Asia Minor, at the foot of which is the city of Brusa, the ancient capital of Turkey. We now enter the Hellespont, and pass close to ancient Troy, the city of Priam. Here, too, are the tombs of Ajax, Hector and Achilles. On our left, is the bay where Agamemnon’s fleet once lay at anchor. There, also, is the island of Tenedos, where the treacherous Greeks concealed themselves when they pretended to abandon the siege of Troy. The ghost of Virgil’s wooden horse now rises up before me, and I quote to a Greek naval officer, standing by my side, this sentence from the Latin poet: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

It was here that a vision appeared unto Paul by night. “There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying, ‘Come over into Macedonia and help us.’ Therefore loosing from Troas (Troy), we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi.” Then followed the imprisonment, earthquake, etc. (Acts XVI). We are sailing close along the coast of Macedonia, but Philippi is not visible. We have a delightful day on the Archipelago, and about eight o’clock on the second morning we land at Piraeus. Here we take train, and twenty minutes later we are in Athens. Here the newsboys crowd around with Greek papers to sell. The bootblacks speak Greek, hotel porters speak Greek, the streets are named in Greek—everything is Greek. I am in a new world, and the trouble is that the Greek of to-day is so very different from that used by the classic writers, that my knowledge of the language helps me but little.

Breakfast being over, I start out to “do the city.” Where do I go? I care little for the present museums and art galleries, and still less for King George, his Palace and the Royal Park. I came here not to see modern Athens, but that city

“On the Aegean shore,

Built nobly; pure the air and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, the mother of arts

And eloquence.”

Hence I go at once to the famous Acropolis. The Acropolis is a hill, or a great rock three hundred feet high, jutting out of the valley in which Athens is situated. This rock is oblong in shape, measuring 1,100 feet north and south, and about 500 feet east and west. Its sides are everywhere steep, and on the north perpendicular. This Athenian rock, the Acropolis, was once crowned by five marble temples, the most splendid of which was the Parthenon.

The Parthenon has justly been called “the finest edifice on the finest site in the world, hallowed by the noblest recollections that can stimulate the human heart.” This wonderful temple was 100 by 250 feet, built of the purest Pentelic marble, and surrounded by eighty huge columns. The Parthenon, like most of the other Grecian temples, is now partly in ruins. It has been standing twenty-five hundred years, and yet, despite the combined onslaught and united ravages of the Persian, the Turk, time, war, earthquake, flood and fire, these stately walls and lofty columns still stand to attest the energy, taste, skill and culture of the ancient Greeks. They were

“First in the race that led to glory’s goal,

The Parthenon, the Parthenon!

Look on its broken Arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate and portals foul.
Yes; this was once ambition’s airy hall;
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.”

Standing on the Acropolis and looking toward the north, I see modern Athens, with its seventy-five thousand inhabitants. To the east, are the remains of the “Temple of Jupiter.” This immense structure was once surrounded by one hundred and fifty Corinthian columns, seven feet in diameter and sixty feet high. Sixteen of these columns, and one triumphal arch, still stand in a perfect state of preservation. They are wonderful to behold.

Looking in the same direction, but beyond the temple of Jupiter, I see the Stadium, which consists of a natural amphitheatre, formed by three hills, united and modified artificially. This is where the gymnastic contests and Olympic games took place.

Southwest of the Acropolis, is the rock-hewn prison of Socrates where the grand old philosopher drank the fatal hemlock. Directly west, is the platform with a stone pulpit from which the destinies of Athens were swayed by the matchless eloquence of Demosthenes. Between this pulpit and the Acropolis is the Areopagus, or Mar’s Hill. When Paul was in Athens, “they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?’ Then Paul stood in the midst of Mar’s Hill and said, ‘Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For, as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: ‘To the Unknown God.’ Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.’” (Acts xvii: 15-32.) I stood “in the midst of Mar’s Hill,” and read Paul’s speech in Greek to some “men of Athens,” who, in all probability, had never heard it before.

I have now been in this classic land many days, during which I have lost no time. I have seen much of the people. On Tuesday and Saturday afternoons of each week, the royal band discourses music from a grand stand occupying the centre of one of the public squares. During these concert hours, from five to ten thousand Greeks assemble in this open square. Here they meet and mix and commingle and commune in the freest and easiest manner imaginable. They sit, stand, promenade, or dance, as they like, but all of them are all the time laughing and talking. I never saw a better-natured crowd. I miss no opportunity like this to study Greek life and character. One cannot be thrown among this crowd for an hour without observing among the women the same traits of female beauty that we have been studying all our lives in models of art and sculpture. The men, I take it, have degenerated more than the women. A modern Diogenes might walk the streets of Athens for a week, without finding a man like those of olden times. I am glad to add, however, that the present king is doing much to elevate his subjects.

I have wandered through and around these majestic ruins all day, and then gone back at night and viewed them by the pale moonlight. As I sit in the quiet stillness of this midnight hour and think of the past,

“Memory approaches,

Holding up her magic glass,

Pointing to familiar pictures,

Which across the surface pass.”

In the stately procession which sweeps across the stage of my imagination, I see Socrates, Zeno, Plato, and Xenophon; I see Aristotle, Solon, Pericles, Sophocles, and Demosthenes. These are the men that gave Greece her glory; these are the men who, with the fulcrum of thought planted their feet upon the Acropolis and moved the world. Borrowing the thought from Canon Farrar, though not using his exact language, I may say, “Under Greek influence human freedom put forth its most splendid power; human intellect displayed its utmost sublimity and grace; art reached its most consummate perfection; poetry uttered alike its sweetest and sublimest strains and philosophy attuned to the most perfect music of human expression, its loftiest and deepest thought. Had it been possible for the world, by its own wisdom, to know God; had it been in the power of man to turn into bread the stones of the wilderness; had perfect happiness lain within the grasp of sense, or been among the rewards of culture; had it been granted to man’s unaided power to win salvation by the gifts and graces of his own nature, and make for himself a new Paradise in lieu of that lost Eden before whose gates still wars the fiery sword of the Cherubim,—then such ends would have been achieved by these old Athenians. Nor did their influence die with their bodies; it is alive to-day, and it will be transmitted from generation to generation, until the stars grow dim and moons shall wax and wane no more.”