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For Young People.

ATHENS AND THE GREEKS.

BY REV. L. S. CRAWFORD, OF TREBIZOND.

BEFORE starting upon a trip to Athens in Greece let us read together, from Acts 17: 15-34, of Paul's first visit to that city. Had we gone there a few years ago we should not have found the market place, for portions of the old city had been buried for many years, and not until recently has the debris been dug away, bringing

to light many of the old streets and parts of the old buildings. They also found many of the marble images, the idols which made Paul feel so sad as he saw the people worshiping them.

In visiting Athens you will hear the people speaking Greek, and when you see the signs over the stores in Greek, and hear the newsboys and the bootblacks and the vegetable sellers all calling out in Greek, you will no longer think that Greek is a dead language.

Among the first places to be visited is the Areopagus, which means,. Mars' Hill. When the ancient Athenians. wanted to give a person a full and complete trial they took him to the court of "Mars' Hill." That is what the highest court in Athens today is still called, "Areopagus." Paul had been talking with. the Jews in their synagogues, and with other people in the shops and stores and along the streets and in the squares of the city and under the olive and sycamore trees, and the philosophers and students, who had heard from others, or some of them had perhaps heard themselves, what Paul had said, decided that he should come before the judges at the high court of Mars' Hill. And this chapter in the Acts tells us how beautifully Paul spoke, showing these Greeks that the marble statues they worshiped were not really

GREEK GIRL, WITH DISTAFF AND SPINDLE.

gods. And the thirty-fourth verse tells us that one of the Areopagites, Dionysius, was glad to have Paul come and tell them of the one true God. Just back of the market and beyond Mars' Hill was the Acropolis of

Athens, and you can now go in through the ancient gates and up the old marble steps where crowds of Athenians used to go. And upon the top of the Acropolis you can see the ruins of the great Parthenon, dedicated to the

MODERN ATHENS, WITH THE RUINS OF THE PARTHENON.

virgin Athena, or Minerva. One thing the Athenians used to do every year, when in a great procession they came up to this temple, was to put a new and beautiful robe upon the large statue of Minerva, made of gold and ivory, which stood within the temple. Then there was, outside the Parthenon, another great statue of Minerva made of the bronze spoils taken from the Persians at Marathon, and a little further away an olive tree which was sacred to the virgin Minerva, because, as they say, she planted it there. And now there is a little olive tree growing on that spot, which the Greek keeper will tell you is sacred to the Virgin Mary, for when the Greek nation accepted Christianity they kept many of the old forms and rites which they had had as idolators. The Virgin Mary took the place which the virgin Minerva (or Athena) had held; the picture of St. Nicholas, instead of the image of Neptune, is seen in all the Greek sailing vessels; and in the Greek churches today, while you do not see statues and images of the old heathen gods and goddesses, you find in their places painted pictures of the apostles and others, whom they worship as saints.

But that which will interest you most are the signs now remaining of the successive changes in the religious uses of the Parthenon. We have spoken of the original purpose for which it was erected, viz., for the worship of Athena (Minerva), and now we see faded pictures on the walls, which, after a thousand years, are still plain enough and their colors still bright enough to show how the former heathen temple was converted into a Greek church. Afterward, in 1204, it became a Roman Catholic church, but in the fifteenth century the Turks, who had conquered all Greece, made the Parthenon into a mosque, and there is still standing a part of the minaret from the top of which the muezzin gave the call to prayer five times each day. After the Greek revolution the Turks withdrew from Athens, in 1833, and the Parthenon once more came into the possession of the Greeks.

Some of us, as we stood in these ruins, silently speaking to us of the overturning and the passing away of so many old forms of religion, could not but encourage one another with the assurance that the worship of our Lord and Master is to abide, for "he is to reign forever and ever." And we began to sing Luther's grand old hymn, the English of which is "A mighty fortress is our God." Just as we had finished the last verse, an old custodian stepped up and said in Greek, "It is forbidden to worship." We quietly departed, but we knew that he who was in the days of Paul "the unknown God," he who in his true and most lovely character is still unknown to most of the Athenians, we knew that he would not forbid us.

But before we say "good-by" I must tell you why we have invited you to visit Athens. Please do not get so interested in the past that you will forget the present, for we want you to meet some of the people who now live in that old city, and we want you to take hold and help make the future of the Greeks more glorious than their past.

You must visit the evangelical church near the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Olympus and you must join with them in singing the translation of so many of our best hymns, but you will find the people mourning the recent death of their young pastor, a recent graduate from Marsovan Seminary, who,

like Paul's friend Aquila, came from Pontus. From the family of Dr. Kalopothakes, and from the numerous other interesting friends who assemble there, you will hear about the great number of Bibles distributed in the army during the war a year ago, and you will learn all about the work among the little folks and the grown folks in different parts of Greece. Dr. Kalopothakes will tell you how, sixty years ago, Mr. Houston and Mr. Leyburn came from his home in old Sparta and opened schools for the Spartan boys and girls, and we shall hear a great deal about Dr. Jonas King, who, when a boy, used to live in Hawley, Mass. They will tell us, too, of Dr. Riggs and Mr. Benjamin and others who have done a great deal for the Greeks.

Sometime you ought to cross over to Smyrna and Thyatira and see the

Greek friends there, and then you must surely go on to Constantinople and hear from Dr. Riggs himself and from other American and Greek friends of what is being done among the Greeks of the Black Sea coast and in other parts of Asia Minor. And some of you will perhaps stay and help on the good cause, for we want to open college settlements and to enlarge our school and other work. And those of you who return to stay in America will not forget that you, too, like Paul, are debtors to the Greeks, and you will give a little more generously and pray a little more earnestly in order that God's good work among them may not stop, as some fear it will unless you do something, but that it may increase more and more.