THE RELIGIONS OF THE ANCIENT WOULD.
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pound of strength and weakness, seems to have been formed by successive poets, who, if they in some degree deserved the censure of the philosophers, seem at least not to have been guilty of any arbitrary h'ctions while, on the other hand, by establishing his supremacy they introduced (?) a principle of unity into the Greek polytheism, which was not ;
perhaps without influence on the speculations of the philosophers themselves, though it exerted little on the superstitions of the vulgar. The Olympian deities are assembled round Zeus as his family, in which he maintains the mild
He assigns their several dignity of a patriarchal king. Their combined provinces, and controls their authority. efforts cannot give the slightest shock to his power, nor retard the execution of his will ; and hence their waywardness, even when it incurs his rebuke, cannot ruffle the inward The tremendous nod, wherewith he serenity of his soul. confirms his decrees, can neither be revoked nor frustrated. As his might is irresistible, so is his wisdom unsearchable. He holds the golden balance in which are poised the destinies of nations and of men from the two vessels that stand at his threshold he draws the good and evil gifts that alternately sweeten and embitter mortal existence. The eternal order of things, the ground of the immutable succession of events, is his, and therefore he himself submits to it. Human laws derive their sanction from his ordinance ; earthly kings receive their sceptre from his hand ; he is the guardian of social right ; he watches over the fulfilment of contracts, the observance of oaths ; he punishes tieachery, arrogance, and cruelty. The stranger and the suppliant are under his peculiar pi'otcction the fence that encloses the family dwelling is in his keeping ; he avenges the denial and the abuse of hospitality. Yet even this greatest and most glorious of beings, as he is called, is subject, like the other gods, to passion and frailty. For, though secure from dissolution, though surpassingly beautiful and strong, and wanned with a purer blood than fills the veins of men, their heavenly frames are not insensible to pleasure and pain ; they need the refreshment of ambrosial food, and inhale a grateful savor from the sacrifices of their worshippers. Their other affections correspond to the grossness of these animal appetites. Capricious love and hatred, anger and jealousy, often disturb the calm of their bosoms ; the peace of the Olympian state might be broken by factions, and even ;
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