It would be instructive to show that the religion of Greece, as embraced by the people, did not prevent or even condemn those social evils that are the greatest blot on enlightened civilization.  It did not discourage slavery, the direst evil which ever afflicted humanity; it did not elevate woman to her true position at home or in public; it ridiculed those passive virtues that are declared and commended in the Sermon on the Mount; it did not pronounce against the wickedness of war, or the vanity of military glory; it did not dignify home, or the virtues of the family circle; it did not declare the folly of riches, or show that the love of money is a root of all evil.  It made sensual pleasure and outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hid with an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results of a worldly life, so that suicide itself came to be viewed as a justifiable way to avoid evils that are hard to be borne; in short, it was a religion which, though joyous, was without hope, and with innumerable deities was without God in the world,—­which was no religion at all, but a fable, a delusion, and a superstition, as Paul argued before the assembled intellect of the most fastidious and cultivated city of the world.

And yet we see among those who worshipped the gods of Greece a sense of dependence on supernatural power; and this dependence stands out, both in the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the boldest heroes.  They seem to be reverential to the powers above them, however indefinite their views.  In the best ages of Greece the worship of the various deities was sincere and universal, and was attended with sacrifices to propitiate favor or avert their displeasure.

It does not appear that these sacrifices were always offered by priests.  Warriors, kings, and heroes themselves sacrificed oxen, sheep, and goats, and poured out libations to the gods.  Homer’s heroes were very strenuous in the exercise of these duties; and they generally traced their calamities and misfortunes to the neglect of sacrifices, which was a great offence to the deities, from Zeus down to inferior gods.  We read, too, that the gods were supplicated in fervent prayer.  There was universally felt, in earlier times, a need of divine protection.  If the gods did not confer eternal life, they conferred, it was supposed, temporal and worldly good.  People prayed for the same blessings that the ancient Jews sought from Jehovah.  In this sense the early Greeks were religious.  Irreverence toward the gods was extremely rare.  The people, however, did not pray for divine guidance in the discharge of duty, but for the blessings which would give them health and prosperity.  We seldom see a proud self-reliance even among the heroes of the Iliad, but great solicitude to secure aid from the deities they worshipped.

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