conformed to the popular superstitions.

The spirit of the religion of ancient Greece was included in these
principles, that the worship of the gods was of superior obligation and
importance to all other duties, and that they frequently displayed their
power in this world in the punishment of the bad and the prosperity of
the virtuous. Such were the opinions inculcated by the most celebrated
philosophers and poets but the common people, more gratified by the
fictions of the received mythology, than by tenets of pure morals, found
in the actions recorded of their gods and goddesses a sufficient
justification of every species of licentiousness. With respect to a
future state of existence, the philosophers themselves appear to have
fluctuated in uncertainty, as may be collected from the sentiments of
Socrates. The poets inculcated a belief in Tartarus and Elysium. They
have drawn a picture of Tartarus in the most gloomy and horrific colors,
where men, who had been remarkable for impiety to the gods, such as
Tantalus, Tityus and Sisyphus, were tormented with a variety of misery
ingeniously adapted to their crimes.

The prospect of Elysium is beautiful and inviting, as described by
Homer, Hesiod and Pindar. In that delightful region there is no
inclement weather, but the soft zephyrs blow from the ocean to refresh
the inhabitants who live without care and anxiety; there the sky is
always serene and the sunshine is perpetual. The earth yields delicious
fruits for their sustenance three times per year. But these enjoyments
were confined to the persons who were of rank and distinction. Their
Elysium was a sensual heaven. How very different is the Christian's
future happy home?

Proteus informed Menelaus that he would be conveyed to the Islands of
the Blessed, because he was the husband of Helen, and the son-in-law of
Jupiter. No incentives to goodness from the consideration of a future
state are held out by the older poets to the female sex, or to the
ignoble or common people, however pure their conduct or exemplary their
virtue. In later times we find that Pindar extends his rewards to good
men in general; but Euripides is sometimes skeptical, and Iphigenia
without hesitation expresses her disbelief of the popular mythology.

The learned Jortin says, It gives us pleasure to trace in Homer the
important doctrine of a supreme God, a providence, and a free agency in
man, supposed to be consistent with fate or destiny; a differ