Yet this idea of future reward for the righteous has very narrow and meager expression in Homer. Of Menelaus alone is it declared that he is not ordained to die, but that the deathless gods will convey him to the Elysian plain and to the world's end where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain; but alway ocean sendeth forth its breezes to blow cool on men. As there is no distinct statement of punishment for all the wicked, but only for the most outrageous transgressors, so there is no distinct promise of happiness for the good, but only for a few exceptional favorites of the gods. The doctrine of future rewards and punishments was in later times far more fully developed-only the germs of it do we find in Homer. Indeed he cannot develop it, for the one means by which, in accordance with his general system, blessedness could be assured to the departed has never occurred to him. Consciousness and happiness are dependent on the possession of a physical organism. True life can be ours only by joining body and soul once more together. But Homer nowhere tells us of a resurrection; he knows no way of rescue from the power of the grave; life and immortality have not yet been brought to light by the gospel. Here is another truth which Moses knew, and the Egyptians long before him, but which became so lost out of the beliefs of the Greeks, that when Paul proclaimed Jesus and the resurrection to the men of Athens, they only mocked at him, and thought his story too silly for a hearing.

And as for hope in death, Homer has nothing of this either. The golden fabric of life is shot with many a thread of sorrow. Outwardly the world is fresh and

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young, and it rejoices in its youth, but the joy is superficial-listen intently and you will hear a sound of wailing over the instability and brevity of earthly things. Age finds death welcome, for death puts an end to pains of body and the caprice of fortune; but, when death comes, it only ushers the soul into a cheerless region of wandering and retribution, where there are indeed bitter punishments for the wicked, but no sure rewards for the righteous. There is no rest for the weary in this present world, and there is still less rest for the weary in the world to come. How strangely incongruous with the whole tenor of the " Iliad " and the "Odyssey" would be an interpolation of that verse from John's Gospel, "I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die"; or this from the Apocalypse, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them."

If there is any one lesson which, more than any other, is taught us by this study of Homer, it is man's need of a special divine revelation. We see humanity blindly groping after the truth with regard to God, sin, atonement, the future life, but utterly unable to reach it. These great poems do not teach us so much of divinity as they do of humanity. They set before us in vivid pictures the ideas of courage and endurance which make the ideal man, when once God's ideal of humanity has faded out of sight. It is this human interest which makes both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" great; in each there stands forth a living man; Achilles represents

the grandeur, as Odysseus represents the virtue, of the heroic character. In each poem the hero is made to speak out, and to act out, an inner life peculiarly his own the fiery wrath of Achilles and the fiery love that conquers it, the patient faithfulness of Odysseus and his many devices these, and not mere external incidents, are the subjects which the poet is intent upon develop. ing. How different from the Christian standard of humility and mercy is the warlike grandeur of Achilles! How different from the Christian standard of simplicity and truth is the wily wisdom of Odysseus! Heathen doctrine has begotten heathen morality-the stream cannot rise higher than its fountain.

Yet these natural virtues, half-barbaric as they are, have a splendid vigor in Homer's pages, and they will never cease to captivate the world. And Homer's women, with what slight touches, yet how masterly and sure, are these selected types painted upon the canvas! I do not speak of Helen, whose imperishable beauty through all the vicissitudes of war and conquest subdues both friend and foe, even though alternate self-reproach and easy indifference reveal the shallowness of her nature. I do not speak of Nausicaa, that picture of pure girlishness, in which naïveté and dignity, sagacity and modesty, innocent curiosity and womanly promise, so exquisitely blend. I speak rather of Andromache, the heroine of the "Iliad," the tender wife and mother, whose grief at Hector's loss so crushes her that she has not even one word of anger or reproach for those who slew him. And I speak of Penelope, the heroine of the "Odyssey." As Andromache is the model of passive, so Penelope is the model of active, suffering. Here is

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marital fidelity, which through the long and lonely years solaces itself indeed with weeping, yet ever weaves anew the web of hope and planning for her lord's return. In the depicting of these characters, so individual all and so distinct, Homer, more than any other poet except Shakespeare, absorbs himself; the creator is lost in his creations; we know much about Ajax and Thersites, about Circe and Eumæus, but we know very little about Homer himself.

There is a spontaneity and exuberance of imagery, moreover, an endless fertility of invention, a largeness and roundness of conception, a dewy sparkle and freshness of phrase, that befit the early morning time of history. How unconventional and yet how graphic, how ornate and yet how simple, how definite and yet how sublime, is the poetry of Homer! Physical health breathes through it; more than any other epics, these are the poems of out-of-doors. The earth, the sky, and the loud-resounding main are here. On the plain of Troy we catch the dazzling gleam of the innumerable bronze, as the serried ranks of the Greeks move forward to the fray. On the waters we hear the shrill west wind whistling through the cordage and singing over the wine-dark sea. By day the Achæans fight like unto burning fire, saying that one omen is best, to fight for one's country. By night the watch-fires of the Trojans are countless as the stars when the air is windless and all heaven opens to the view and the shepherd's heart is glad. Apollo is made known by the dread clanging of his silver bow; the lame Hephaestus hobbles about to dispense the nectar amid the unquenchable laughter of the blessed gods. Upon their hinges groan

the gates of heaven whereof the Hours are the warders, to whom are committed great Heaven and Olympus, whether to throw open the thick cloud or to shut it to. The persuasive words of Odysseus are like the snowflakes of the early winter, so softly do they fall; there is something awe-inspiring in every word of Achilles, as when he opens his mouth to say: "Hateful! to me as the gates of hell is he that hideth one thing in his heart and uttereth another." Is it wonderful that Xenophanes called the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" "the primary source of all education," and that Æschylus called his own tragedies but "fragments from the great banquet of Homer"?

Whether for good or evil, Homer has been one of the world's chief teachers. Every later poet has formed his poetic style more or less upon Homer's model; where the influence has been unconscious, it has been none the less real. Like the Colosseum at Rome, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" have been a quarry, from which later builders have drawn a large part of their material. Subtract from the "Eneid," from the "Divine Comedy," from the "Paradise Lost," what of substance or expression they indirectly or directly owe to Homer, and you would hardly recognize your Virgil or Dante or Milton. We cannot doubt that Providence ordained these poems to be a great factor in the education of mankind.

Hegel makes the godlike Achilles fierce but brave, impulsive but generous, the type and incentive of Greek civilization. Who can measure the influence which Homer has exerted, not only on the literature and liberty of Greece, but on the literature and liberty of