Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker

by M. Golden

The Kingdom of Greece, little more than two millions of people, pay to King George, for his annual allowances six times as much as the ninety millions of people to the President of the United States. And every creature of royal blood, in Greece, draws as high an allowance, as nearer to the throne his or her rights happen to be. Besides, many thousands of acres of the best land in Greece, is granted to the members of the royal family; thus causing the immense emigration of all these Greeks, whom you meet in every corner, in the United States, trying to make an honest living, by shining your shoes, or working in the construction of railroads in America and Mexico.

The Greek, though born and raised among the most beautiful vineyards that made the historical and famous Nectar for the Gods, yet when he leaves his home to go abroad, he takes his last glass of intoxicant, till he settles himself, in a new adopted motherland, and makes a comfortable home for the queen of his heart, because home life is the ideal of every Greek and he is a model as head of the family, in his moderate means trying to raise children to his generation and give them the best he can afford. Hopeful, that some Socrates or Demosthenes might develop out of his offspring. The Greek has never been identified with any unlawful or criminal movement of the so-called Anarchistic or Socialistic. The Greek at all times and under all circumstances is an example as a law-abiding citizen.

Greek history is the pride of all the civilized world, and in the opinion of a most distinguished sociologist, the United States is the Greece of this age, and he thinks that it is the irresistible law of gravitation and sympathy that the tide of emigration draws the Greeks from the ancient Greece into this new and glorious Greece. And the writer was very little surprised when told that Boston is the Hub of America, or in the language of the Archaeologist, the Athens of the United States, and there and then he made his resolution to make his home in Boston, should he ever find the way clear to come to America. The joyful dream of his life has become reality, and for the last six years from his personal observations traveling a little more, perhaps, than the average American traveler, from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Coast, he is privileged to know that the spirit of the Ancient Greece is not only confined in the Hub, but, hospitality and the love of art and beauty prevails in the very heart of every true American man and woman, even in the remotest village and hamlet, and he has yet to know the time or the place where he did not feel perfectly at home. Therefore, there is no regret on his part for bidding farewell to the land of the Gods and the city which had been the birthplace of taste, of art and beauty and eloquence. The chosen sanctuary of the Muses. The prototype of all that is graceful and dignified and grand in sentiment and action.

History and philosophy, oratory and the elements of mathematical science claim as their birthplace the city of Athens, where Paul, the greatest apostle of Jesus Christ, uttered his immortal oration to the Athenians, on the Areopagus (Mars Hill). And he, dignified, temperate, high-minded and learned in all wisdom, of his age, Paul, confessed that he was standing in the midst of the highest civilization, both of his own age and of the ages that had elapsed.

Paul, with his face towards the north having immediately behind him the long walls which ran down to the sea, affording protection against a foreign enemy. Near the sea on the one side the harbor of Piraeus, on the other that designated Phalerum, with crowded arsenals, their busy workmen and their gallant ships. Not far off in the ocean the Island of Salamis, ennobled forever in history as the spot near which Athenian valour chastised Asiatic pride, and achieved the liberty of Greece. The Apostle turning towards his right hand to catch a view of a small but celebrated hill rising within the city near that on which he stood, called the Pnyx, where standing on a block of bare stone, Demosthenes and other distinguished orators had addressed the assembled people of Athens, swaying that arrogant and fickle democracy, and thereby making Philip of Macedon tremble, or working good or ill for the entire civilized world. Immediately before him looking upon the crowded city, studded in every part with memorials sacred to religion or patriotism, and exhibiting the highest achievements of art. On his left, somewhat beyond the walls, the Academy, with its groves of plane and olive-trees, its retired walks and cooling fountains, its altar to the Muses, its statues of the Graces, its Temple of Minerva, and its altars to Prometheus, to Love, and Hercules, near which Plato had his country seat, and in the midst of which he had taught as well his followers after him. But the most impressive spectacle laying on his right hand, that small and precipitous hill "The Acropolis" where clustered together monuments of the highest art, and memorials of the national religion, such as no other equal spot of ground has ever borne. The Apostle's eyes, in turning to the right, would fall on the north-west side of the eminence, which was here and all round, covered and protected by a wall, parts of which were so ancient as to be of Cyclopean origin. The western side, which alone gave access to what, from its original destination, may be termed the fort, was, during the administration of Pericles, adorned with a splendid flight of steps, and the beautiful Propylaea, with its five entrances and two flanking temples, constructed by Mnesicles of Pentelican marble at a cost of 2012 talents, which is the equivalent of about four millions of American dollars. In the time of the Roman emperors there stood before the Propylaea, equestrian statues of Augustus and Agrippa. On the southern wing of the Propylaea was a temple to the Wingless Victory; on the northern, a Pinacotheca, or picture gallery. On the highest part of the platform of the Acropolis, not more than 300 feet from the entrance-buildings just described, stood and yet stands, though shattered and mutilated, The Parthenon, justly celebrated throughout the world, erected of white Pentelican marble, under the direction of Callicrates, Ictinus and Carpion and adorned with the finest sculptures from the hand of Phidias.

Northward from the Parthenon was the Erechtheum, a compound building which contained the temple of Minerva Polias; the proper Erechtheum, called also the Cecropium, and the Pandroseum. This sanctuary contained the holy olive tree sacred to Minerva, the holy salt-spring, the ancient wooden image of Pallas, etc., and was the scene of the oldest and most venerated ceremonies and recollections of the Athenians. Perhaps, for this reason, King George of Greece, in celebrating his 25th anniversary on the Throne, he gave upon this rock of Acropolis, that remarkable banquet to all crowned visitors, 175 in number from every royal family of Europe. At this memorable event, the writer held the office of "man at arms" on the Acropolis, although he was the youngest officer in the Royal Gendarmery of Greece, at the time.

Between the Propylaea and the Erechtheum was placed the colossal bronze statue of Pallas-Promachos, the work of Phidias, which towered so high above the other buildings, that the plume of her helmet and the point of her spear were visible on the sea between Sunium and Athens. Moreover, the Acropolis was occupied by so great a crowd of statues and monuments, that the account, as found in Pausanias, excites the reader's wonder, and makes it difficult for him to understand how so much could have been crowded into a space which extended from the southeast only 1150 feet, whilst its greatest breadth did not exceed 500 feet.

On the hill itself where Paul stood, was the temple of Furies, and in the court house of Areopagus, there was the altar to Athene Areia.

In all historical probability, Paul, stood exactly on this place when, "to the unknown God" as his text, he delivered the understanding of "The True and Living God," who made the world and all things therein, and he made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.