right to be, and every one will discover that no single Church organization has all the excellencies, or has found out all the best appliances, for doing the Lord's work. The same spirit will prevail which characterized that memorable Church Council of which we have an account in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, that only council which had the right to say, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us," and uniformity will not be exacted, and no unnecessary burdens will be imposed; but liberty will be guaranteed, and diligence in doing the work of the Lord will be enjoined. "The multitude of them" will not be of one name or of one belief, but they will be "of one heart and of one soul;" and the more persistently they speak the same thing, the less will there be of divisions, oxioμata, among them, and the more closely and lovingly and perfectly will they be "joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." 1 Cor. i, 10. All that is needed to this glorious consummation is the catholicity of Archdeacon Hare, when he asserts, "If the body holds to the one Head, and is connected by the one faith, and is sanctified by the one baptism, it is a Church before God;" the self-sacrificing love of Calvin, expressed in the words, "I should not hesitate to cross ten seas, if by this means holy communion might prevail among the members of Christ;" and the brotherly spirit and wise, statesmanly evangelism of Wesley, revealed in his declaration, "I desire to have a league, offensive and defensive, with every soldier of Christ." An organic union, even of Churches of the same faith and order, is not the objective point of our endeavors; but that we may all discern the things in which we agree, the precious treasures which we hold in common, the one grand indivisible work which we have to accomplish, and the completeness which we realize and manifest more and more as we grow up into Christ, our living Head. With this discernment will come a Pentecostal baptism, an increased strength and fervor of religious experience, a more aggressive movement against the powers of darkness, greater spiritual successes in all lands, and a speedier inauguration of the new earth and heaven. New Greece. ART. V. THE GREECE OF TO-DAY. By LEWIS SARGEANT. Finley's Greek Revolution. The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem. By HON. Wм. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. AMONG the nations of antiquity Greece, though not the largest of the galaxy, is the brightest and most attractive. It has been her peculiarity and boast to be a microcosm of letters and art, of refinement and eloquence. Though often eclipsed and clouded like the sun, her nationality has never been destroyed. She has buffeted with hostile peoples, overcoming and being overcome, from the earliest times, but in the midst of saddest vicissitudes her spirit and genius have survived and reappeared. To-day, after three hundred years of barbaric Turkish rule, she lifts her proud head among the powers of Europe, like the little horn in Daniel's vision, and forces recognition as a factor in the Eastern Question that cannot be eliminated or waved aside. Though denied a representation in the person of a Greek embassador by the great powers at the Congress of Berlin, in 1878, she yet compelled a concession and recommendation from that imperial body that her domain shall be enlarged to an extent corresponding nearly with her ancient territorial limits. No intelligent tourist considers his European or Oriental trip complete until he has seen Greece, and especially Athens, its capital. Nor is this country a point of attraction to the idle and curious merely, who travel for personal gratification or in search of health. Thinkers, historians, statesmen, and Christians are looking at Greece at the present moment with absorbing interest and exhilarating hope. Mr. Gladstone, by some thought to be the greatest living statesman, has recently written an important article on Greece for the "Contemporary Review," taking the ground, as Daniel Webster did before him, that natural right and political justice require that her national independence should be conceded and guaranteed. The leading writers of England are in deep sympathy with the Hellenic cause. There is scarcely a number of the many stately "Reviews" of that country that does not contain an exhaustive discussion of some aspect of the Greek problem. And in all the diplomatic consultations it obtrudes itself. It is the "irrepressible conflict." . Modern Greece has magnified itself into so great importance that historians have begun to make it a subject of distinct history. Greece was taken and subjugated by the Turks under the lead of Omar in 1455. It continued an integral part of the Ottoman Empire until the treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, when she rose in heroic desperation and threw off the despotic yoke, and became again free by the aid of Great Britain. Finley gives a full account of this struggle in his work entitled "Finley's History of the Greek Revolution." More recently another book has appeared, under the title "New Greece." This author deals especially with resuscitated Greece. It is a picture of the late progress, the present prosperous condition and future prospects, of the Hellenic people. Thus Greece, like a magnet, is drawing to herself the thought and press of Europe. We may judge of the character of a nation by the literature which it inspires and of which it makes itself the subject. Nobody writes a history of Spain or Turkey now, unless it be a recital of horrors or misrule, to show why neither should exist longer. No full-orbed picture can be given of Greece except from personal observation. We approached it from the north and west on a vessel of the Peninsular and Oriental Line of English steamers that ply between Venice and Egypt. Starting from Venice, we steamed down the Adriatic into the Mediterranean direct for Alexandria. Taking this course, our track lay in a curve around an important part of Greece, and necessitated our skirting the coast for a day and a half. Late in the evening of our third day out, gray barren hills capped with snow made their appearance to the left. It was the island of Corfu, where the English made their governmental head-quarters from 1815 to 1864, when, under the administration of Mr. Gladstone, England surrendered this, with six other islands, to Greece. Sailing onward, another island comes in sight, of similar configuration and general aspect. It is Cephalonia. And still another. It is Zante. And what are all these craggy peaks in the ocean, denuded of vegetation and tipped with snow? They are three of the seven famous Ionian islands, which gave one of the three dialects to the classic Greek tongue, and contributed much in the days of their greatest importance and prosperity to the glory of Athens and of ancient Greece, and by competition so excited the jealousy of Corinth as to become one of the causes of the Peloponnesian war. The next morning we found ourselves gliding in full view of a long range of mountains still wearing the turban of snow on their brow, diversified by ravines and small towns hanging on the hill-sides, or nestling down in the valleys, or hugging the sea, so nearly on a level with the water as to be scarcely visible. This is the mainland of Greece, now called the Morea, anciently styled the Peloponnesus. It is a peninsula connected with the continent by an isthmus six miles wide, on which the ancient city of Corinth was located, and where, three miles distant, on the coast of the Gulf of Corinth, is found the miserable town of New Corinth, where we spent the Sabbath in coming from Kalamaki. Since the earthquake of 1858 nothing remains of the voluptuous city of ancient Corinth, except two dilapidated and broken columns. The imposing mountain peak called AcroCorinthus, a part of the original site of the city, and which overlooked the center of the city proper, still stands, in spite of wars and earthquakes. On the rear-side it slopes to the sea-level, and is ascended by a winding carriage-way. This grand and virgin summit of nature is cursed with the historic memory that it was the seat of legalized licentiousness, and the spot where a thousand corrupted women were supported by the Government. It stands in frowning silence, and looks down upon the devastation below, seeming to say, "The wages of sin is death." This our first view of Greece at the point of junction between the Adriatic and the Mediterranean was unfavorable. It impressed us as broken, rocky, barren, without trees or vegetation of any kind, and yet we were told the soil was productive under the hand of cultivation. From this we saw no more of Greece until we reached the classic isles from Smyrna on the east. We weighed anchor from Smyrna at five o'clock in the evening, and the next day at one P.M. we touched at Syra. Syra is the chief sea-port town of Greece. At this point all the large ships stop, which run in the trade of Constantinople and the ports of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. They do not go up the Saronic bay to Athens, but take on and discharge their Grecian freight at this place. The town of Syra is built on a steep hill-side stretching up from the water's edge to a dizzy height. A large proportion of the houses are new and white, which gives the place a gay and showy appearance, especially. in the moonlight. This results from the fact that the atmosphere of Greece is not murky, like that of England and Germany, but clear and transparent, like that of Syria and Egypt. This imparts to the Grecian sky that high and spacious aspect and deep-blue tinge described by Byron: "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild, Sweet are thy groves and verdant are thy fields, And still his honeyed wealth Hymethus yields; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair." All this we felt to be true as we stood on the summit of towering Lycabettus and looked across the plains of Attica. After spending a day and night at Syra we transshipped and sailed direct for Athens. Ten hours brought us to Pireus, a thriving town at the head of the Saronic bay. Athens is inland six miles from this place, and reached by turnpike or railway. We chose a carriage, and, riding rapidly over a broad, smooth road, found ourselves on classic ground, domiciled in the good "Hotel de Strangers," and surrounded by a brilliant coterie representing many nations, who had come like ourselves to visit this city of greatest renown in the kingdom of letters and art. We had come to see the seat and monumental ruins of a nation that had achieved greater success in thought, literature, architecture, and prowess, than any other people on the globe outside Bible lands. But we can give only the briefest synopsis of her old enchanting annals. Authentic history of Greece dates back to the first Olympiad,.776 years before Christ. All accounts previous fade into myth and legend. Indeed, for two hundred years after that period much of Grecian history is founded in conjecture and mixed with fable. Homer is supposed to have lived 800 years B.C. But this is not certain; a cloud of obscurity has ever hung over his nativity. Herodotus and Aristotle place his birth at two different periods, separated by the enor mous gap of two hundred years, while some ruthless rummaging and iconoclastic German critics have denied his existence alto |