THE ELGIN MARBLES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
A flight of sixteen rough-hewn steps leads to the summit, where the judges sat. They are the ancient steps. By them St. Paul ascended to address the Athenian audience which gathered before him. Above him, as he spoke, rose the whole glory of the Acropolis, with its magnificent temples and bewildering array of statues. And yet this stranger dared to utter the impressive words, "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands." This in the shadow of the Parthenon! "We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver, or stone graven by art and man's device." This in the presence of the works of Phidias!
MARS HILL.
IN THE TIME OF PAUL.
When we remember how the Acropolis must then have looked, we cannot wonder that the Athenians who heard these words spoken within its shadow smiled, and ironically answered, "We will hear thee again of this matter!" Well, Athens has heard him again, and so has the entire world. Paul discoursed here for possibly an hour, but what he said has ever since been echoing down the ages. None knew him then; but in a few short years, to the church founded by him in the Greek town of Corinth, he wrote his two epistles to the Corinthians, which may be read in every language of the civilized world; and now there is hardly a city in all Christendom that has not a cathedral or church bearing the great Apostle's name.