On our way to Marathon, we turned a little out of the road to see a mutilated statue of a Lion, which still bears the signs of most excellent workmanship.
We have already repeatedly viewed every thing worthy notice in Athens; but as the painter has not yet finished his drawings, we shall remain here some days longer, during which we mean to make an excursion to the Islands of Salamis, Ægina, &c. But as they contain nothing worthy description, I will close this sketch of the history and antiquities of this interesting city, with a short account of the religion of its present inhabitants. About one-fifth of them are Turks, and the rest Greeks.
GREEK RELIGION.
St. Paul, you recollect, visited Athens, and the other states of Greece, to preach Christianity; and notwithstanding all the anathemas the Pope has denounced against the Greeks, there is, in fact, but little difference between their religion, and that of the Roman Catholics. They equally make use of the sign of the cross; worship images; pray to the saints; have confessors; and believe in transubstantiation, although they do not kneel at the elevation of the Host. If they deny the doctrine of purgatory, they admit something very like it, in praying for the souls of the dead. Their Bishops and superior clergy are never permitted to marry; but a simple priest is allowed that indulgence once in his life, though he can never take a second wife. They acknowledge the Pope to be the chief of the Patriarchs, but deny his having the power of granting indulgences; and this was his Holiness's first reason for accusing them of schism.
It is true, there is another grand point in which they dissent both from the Roman Catholics and the Protestants; I mean the article of the Holy Ghost, which they say can proceed from the Father only. There are some less essential differences, such as their using leavened bread in the consecration of the Sacrament, and mixing the bread and wine together. And they also differ in the ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and burial. In the first they give three complete immersions. The second is performed by the priest's changing the ring from the bride's to the bridegroom's finger, saying a few words, and then from the bridegroom's to the bride's. He repeats this ceremony about thirty times, without any alteration, and when he desists, it is again as often performed by each of the godfathers and godmothers. Their funerals are like those of the savages--howling and making hideous cries till the corpse is interred, and then feasting over the grave.
The Patriarch of Constantinople is the head of the Greek Church, and has under him the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Damascus, and Alexandria. St. Polycarp is their favorite Saint. He was one of St. John's disciples, and suffered martyrdom at Smyrna, of which he was the first Archbishop.
MAHOMETAN RELIGION.
From the religion of the Greeks, I naturally turn to that of the Turks. To have a just idea of this, it is necessary that we should divest ourselves of every prejudice; and in arraigning the character of a man whom death has prevented from appearing in his own defence, Justice ever requires, that if we do not put the most favorable construction on his actions, we should, at least, treat them with impartiality.
To speak candidly then, Mahomet might be a religious and a moral man. His father left him in rather penurious circumstances, but profiting to the utmost by the education his friends could afford him, and always preserving a most unexceptionable character, he rose to be factor of a rich widow, whom he afterwards married; and becoming, by this connection, a person of some consequence in his country, he felt it his duty to devote himself to its welfare.
He saw, with the utmost concern, that the Jews and the Christians were constantly at variance, and that Idolatry was daily gaining ground. To check the progress of a practice so unworthy the human mind, and so degrading to our Divine Maker, appeared to him an object worthy his whole attention. Filled with this idea, it became the constant subject of his thoughts, and after long revolving it in his mind, he, at length, conceived it impossible to attain his end by any other method, but by that of uniting the Jews and the Christians in one religion. And this he knew could only be effected by admitting part of the tenets of both.