Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

378 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDagain Phoenicia and Syria, and the continent tothe depth of perhaps a hundred miles round thethsia Minor watered by the sea,were in a larger sense the Greek's country, a fieldof Grecian thought, and enterprise, and observation,a sphere in which his mind was enlarged,and his judgment of men and things matured.4Generally speaking these regions were singularlyfavoured as to richness of soil and convenience ofsituation. Herodotus himself has marked the climateof Ionia as the most beautifuland best-temperedof the earth; and with a far wider knowledgef its regions we should not venture to dispute thjustness of his remark. Some modern writers arewont to dwell on the effect which climate exercisesupon man's mind. However this may be, it iscertain that the race whose energies were diffusedover this region was most highly gifted with naturalendowments. When out of the world whichChristianity has mainly formed, and from thebosom of nations which have grown through thestruggle of a thousand years, and with perpetualcompetition among each other, into a rich civilisation,we look back 011 that ancient and simplerworld, we find in Hellenism the most perfect * ex-pression of the natural man, as a plastic, artistic,poetical, philosophical, and generally intellectual4 Thus Herodotus says of Solon, TTJS 0eo>piV c/cS^ju^cras elveKtv, i. 30;and presently, ^» ^ |e?^e 'A07jz/a?e, Trap ^ ^ ^