Their very religion, in spite of its imperfections, helped forward
their education, not in spite of, but by means of that
anthropomorphism which we sometimes too hastily decry. As Mr.
Gladstone says: "As regarded all other functions of our nature,
outside the domain of the life to Godward--all those functions
which are summed up in what St. Paul calls the flesh and the mind,
the psychic and bodily life, the tendency of the system was to
exalt the human element, by proposing a model of beauty, strength,
and wisdom, in all their combinations, so elevated that the effort
to attain them required a continual upward strain. It made
divinity attainable; and thus it effectually directed the thought
and aim of man


Along the line of limitless desires.


Such a scheme of religion, though failing grossly in the
government of the passions, and in upholding the standard of moral
duties, tended powerfully to produce a lofty self-respect, and a
large, free, and varied conception of humanity. It incorporated
itself in schemes of notable discipline for mind and body, indeed
of a lifelong education; and these habits of mind and action had
their marked results (to omit many other greatnesses) in a
philosophy, literature, and art, which remain to this day
unrivalled or unsurpassed."

So much those old Greeks did for their own education, without
science and without Christianity. We who have both: what might
we not do, if we would be true to our advantages, and to