it was permitted to erect a scaffolding of conceptions on which to
receive the great revelation at the highest possible level of
thought and instinctive sentiment to which man could attain without
supernatural light and help. If this last _perhaps_ is preferable
to the others, where was this scaffolding the highest? Over
Confucius, or Socrates, or the Scandinavian seer, or Druid or Aztec
priest? Was it highest at Athens, because there the great apostle
to the Gentiles planted his feet upon it, and said, in the ears of
the Grecian sophists, "Him whom ye ignorantly worship declare I unto
you?" At that brilliant centre of pagan civilization it might have
reached its loftiest altitude, measured by a purely intellectual
standard; but morally, this scaffolding was on the same low level of
human life and character all the world around. The immortalities
erected by Egyptian or Grecian philosophy were no purer, in moral
conception and attributes, than the mythological fantasies of the
North American Indians. In them all, human nature was to have the
old play of its passions and appetites; in some of them, a wider
sweep and sway. There was not one in the whole set of Grecian
deities half so moral and pure, in sentiment and conduct, as
Socrates; nor were Jupiter and his subordinate celestials better
than the average kings and courts of Greece. Out of the hay, wood,
and stubble of sheer fancy the human mind was left to raise these
fantastic structures. They exercised and entertained the
imagination, but brought no light nor strength to the soul; no
superior nor additional motives to shape the conduct of life. But
they did this, undoubtedly, with all their delusions; they developed
the _thought_ of immortality among the most benighted races of men.
Their most perplexing unrealities kept the mind restless and almost
eager for some supplementary manifestation; so that, when the Star
of Bethlehem shone out in the sky of Palestine, there were men
looking heavenward with expectant eyes at midnight. From that hour
to this, and among pagan tribes of the lowest moral perception, the
heralds of the Great Revelation have found the _thought_ of another
existence active though confused. They have found everywhere a
platform already erected, like that on which Paul stood in the midst
of Mars Hill, and on which they could stand and say to heathen
communities, "Him whom ye ignorantly worship declare I unto you!
That future life and im