was no goodness in his religion, and we can tolerate it only as it is
developed in the Homeric rhapsodies, in the far-off fable-time of the
old world, and amongst men who were but partially self-conscious. In
that remote Homeric epoch it is tolerable, when cattle-stealing and war
were the chief employments of the ruling caste,--and we may add,
woman-stealing, into the bargain. "I did not come to fight against the
Trojans," says Achilles, "because I had suffered any grievance at their
hands. They never drove off my oxen and horses or stole my harvests in
rich-soiled Phthia, the nurse of heroes; for vale-darkening mountains
and a tumultuous sea separate us."

Into that old Homeric world we enter through the portals of the "Ilias"
and "Odusseia," and see the peaks of Olympus shining afar off in white
splendor like silvery clouds, not looking for or expecting either a
loftier or a purer heaven. Somewhere on the bounds of the dim
ocean-world we know that there is an exiled court, a faded sort of St.
Germain celestial dynasty, geologic gods, coevals of the old Silurian
strata,--to wit, Kronos, Rhea, Nox, _et al._ Here these old,
unsceptred, discrowned, and sky-fallen potentates "cogitate in their
watery ooze," and in "the shady sadness of vales,"--sometimes visited
by their successors for counsel or concealment, or for the purpose of
establishing harmony amongst them. The Sleep and Death of the Homeric
mythology were naturally gentle divinities,--sometimes lifting the
slain warrior from the field of his fame, and bearing him softly
through the air to his home and weeping kindred. This was a gracious
office. The saintly legends of the Roman Church have borrowed a hint
from this old Homeric fancy. One pleasant feature of the Homeric
battles is, that, when some blameless, great-souled champion falls, the
blind old bard interrupts the performances for a moment and takes his
reader with him away from the din and shouting of the battle,