ATHENS. 263 
UNKNOWN GOD whom they so ignorantly 
worshipped, and opposed the new doctrine of 
"Christ crucified" to the spirit and the genius 
of the Gentile faith. They had brought him to 
the Areopagus, to explain the nature of the rash 
enterprise in which he was engaged; and to 
account for the unexampled temerity of an 
appeal which called upon them to renounce 
their idols, to abolish their most holy rites, and 
to forsake their Pantheon for One only God 
"who dwelleth not in temples made with 
hands," the God of the Hebrews too, a people 
hated and despised by all. It is not possible 
to conceive a situation of greater peril, or one 
more calculated to prove the sincerity of a 
preacher, than that in which the Apostle was 
here placed : and the truth of this, perhaps, will 
never be better felt, than by a spectator who, 
from this eminence, actually beholds the stately 
monuments of Pagan pomp and superstition by 
which he, whom the Athenians consider as " the 
setter-forth of strange Gods," was then sur- 
rounded ; representing to the imagination the 
disciples of Socrates and of Plato, the Dogmatist 
of the Porch, and the Sceptic of the Academy, 
addressed by a poor and lowly man, who, " rude 
in speech," without the " enticing words of man's 
wisdom," enjoined precepts contrary to their 
