The artistic fiction that Odysseus then proceeds to tell the good old man as to his past seems to acknowledge the point that Eumæus has been making, for it shows that Zeus had brought all of his piratical expeditions to naught at one time Zeus thundered, and wrecked the ship; at another, Zeus struck his men with terror in the midst of an attack that they were making, but encouraged those whom they were fighting, so that his men were destroyed and he would have perished himself but for the protection of the king, to whom he became a suppliant. It is not without significance in this connection that the riches which Odysseus brings back with him to Ithaca are gifts, not spoils of war, and that he undertakes a journey to placate the god of the sea, Poseidon, after his return, but makes no more raids. Does not the Odyssey mark the time in the moral evolution of Greece when those who serve Apollo are teaching that wars of aggression and for possessions are wrong? "God gives and God withholds, as is his pleasure; his power is over all." is the comment of this good old Job among the Grecians, who himself has endured in patience one of the hardest of fates, that of a kidnapped child sold into slavery in a foreign land.

In this incident at the lodge, it is the noble slave, Eumæus, and not kingly Odysseus, whom the Blind Bard, inspired by Apollo, is giving the highest honor, and Homer becomes so moved with enthusiasm that he abandons the narrative form and breaks into apostrophe in telling the story: "Then, Swineherd Eumæus, you answered him and said." Is he not saying, in a concrete example, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and those who make for peace"? Homer can not be awarded the glory of having formulated the Beatitudes, but of having at least a vision, a vision in which the mighty on their thrones were not exalted, but those of low degree who tried well.

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Was Odysseus dear to Apollo as well as to Athene, though in lesser degree? We may infer that he was, from the fact that Apollo showed grace to Odysseus when he stopped at Delos on his way to Troy to offer Apollo a sacrifice-Odysseus never failed to offer fit sacrifice to the gods of his devotion. When he meets Nausicaa at the washing-pool after his shipwreck and asks her assistance, he tells her how the god, at Delos, gave him courage and comfort by showing him a vision: Beside the altar, a fair olive shoot sprang up before his eyes, and this he interprets to mean that a fair young maid will be sent to aid him in his hour of direst need. When

Nausicaa gives him the needed assistance, all is fulfilled as the god foretold.

Another point in proof that Odysseus was dear to Apollo is the fact that Apollo inspired the Blind Bard at the palace of Alcinous to sing the Song of the Destruction of Troy, giving praise to Odysseus as the one who, under Athene, brought the war to a close. It was poetically fit that the Blind Bard should do this without knowing that the hero he sang was the honored guest at this banquet. Perhaps Apollo rewarded Odysseus thus, and at once, because he had just done an act of the gentlest courtesy to the Blind Bard, cutting a piece of the choicest meat with his own hand and sending it to him by a page. An act of appreciation like this shows the innermost heart of a man better than his great public deeds, and Apollo will rate this kindness at its true value and reward it, as surely as he punished Agamemnon for not heeding the plea of a humble priest. Odysseus seems to have been the opposite of Agamemnon in consideration of the humble priests who served Apollo, for we are told that "through holy fear" he protected the priest Evanthe, his wife, and his son. For this act, also, Apollo rewarded him richly, for the gift which Evanthe gave him in gratitude became the means by which Odysseus was saved at another desperate moment in his career—it was that very delicious, dark, sweet wine that Evanthe gave him with which he intoxicated Polyphemus, and thereby escaped from the man-eater's cave. Because he served the god of Light, it was poetically just that it should be given him to break the power of this monster of darkness, who devoured wayfarers and suppliants when they were his guests. The reward that Apollo gave to Odysseus after his kindness to the Blind Bard was also fit-a song, an immaterial thing, but one that had the power to move the hearts of virtuous Queen Arete, King Alcinous, the wise counsellors and the people of the Phæacians to honor Odysseus, give him rich gifts, and assist him on his way home. Also, that song will give fame which will last as long as time shall endure....No small thing is Apollo's gift of a song!

Homer, who also was a Blind Bard inspired by Apollo and the Muse, enshrined in this story other acts that Odysseus did, little things, which prove him a man of the kindest heart as well as of Wisdom. Among these was his treatment of his slaves, his kind old Nurse and his Swineherd. How Homer, and the god Apollo love the "noble Swineherd, Eumæus"! and what a true king among men they have shown him to be!

From highest to lowest, all who were good loved Odysseus; his

mother died of grief at his absence, his devoted old dog died of joy when he heard the returned master's vioce. "Your wise ways. glorious Odysseus, and your tenderness-the longing for you took joyous life away," said his mother to him brokenly when he made his descent into Hades; the love of his poor old dog, Argo, drew tears from his eyes, eloquent of what he had been and why he was worthy, not only in the sight of father Zeus and Athene, but also in that of Apollo.

The epic, an oracle in song, was inspired by Apollo, and the Blind Bard knew that all of his power was from this great god: "Sing, O Muse," is his prayer, not "Help me to sing," making himself nothing, or only an instrument in the hands of the god. An empty form in many other writers the invocation to the Muse is a sincere and humble prayer in Homer, and is followed by incidents deeply religious, showing the ways of gods to men: in the Iliad the first incident shows how Apollo punished the king, Agamemnon, for refusing to heed the prayer of the poor priest in behalf of his daughter, who was a captive of war held by the king; in the Odyssey. the first incident shows the gods in Council approving Athene's plan to help Odysseus return to his Home and approving the punishment that Orestes, Agamemnon's young son, has just given Ægisthus. “Lo, how men blame the gods!" says Zeus, and clears himself of blame for Ægisthus's death by showing that he had warned Ægisthus against his evil courses; "Surely, that man lies in fitting ruin!" exclaims Athene. "So perish all who do such deeds"— the deed Ægisthus had done was to woo a wife and help her to kill her husband.

In Apollo, the god of the sun, Grecian mythology touched a height sublime. He was the son by whom Zeus gave light to the world, the light of justice and inspiration, by which man rises above his brute estate. With the help of the Muses, men can transcend mere mortals, in the arts, and can create, like the gods, great works which will not die. The Greeks did not make the mistake, common in darkened ages, of thinking that morals and religion have nothing to do with art. Their word äpew, from which our word art is made. meant a fitting, or joining together, and applied to painting, poetry, drama, sculpture, architecture-all of the high arts presided over by Apollo and the Sacred Nine. But while they used the word to apply to things made of words, sounds, marble or any other material fitted or joined together with beauty, they never forget that these beautiful things were also true and good, for their inspiration was

from Apollo, the god of the sun, and everything less than true and good was unthinkable as emanating from him. Just as the sun pours down his beams upon the earth, giving light, which is the condition of life, so through the Muses Apollo lighted the minds of his chosen art-ists and warmed their hearts with en-thusiasm, which means derivatively, God-Within, for the exaltation of spirit that man feels when the True and the Good are crowned with beauty, they recognized as God-given. Our word poet, also derived from the Greek, meant maker, or creator, and honored the maker of song by comparing him with the Divine Creator, for his work also is a thing of pure spirit, and at its best is immortal, as Homer's is. It is the true poet who becomes an instrument in the hands of the god to waken men to a sense of the good to be attained and justice to be rendered. Out of the heart are the issues of life, and the poet's appeal is from the God-within himself to the God-within other hearts, and so is fundamental. True poets, who ennobled and uplifted men, were leaders among the Greeks, and “poetic justice" was recognized as perfect and to be acted on, as in the Code of Solon. "Oh, that is poetry," says our blind time, and continues to pay the price of injustice and unwisdom. By a living faith in Apollo's justice and Athene's wisdom Homer's hero took courage to fight singlehanded the hundreds of desperate suiters who threatened his home, and he won; by faith in the wisdom and justice of God Athenian Solon, called the Wise and the Just and therefore selected by his poeple to do this political work for them, wrote the Code that made Athens a Democracy and brought her her Golden Age; by faith in Athene and Apollo, little Athens dared to defend herself against giant Persia at fearful odds, and saved herself and the Western World by her victory at Marathon and Salamis-Davids against Goliaths!

In the myths of wise Athene and just Apollo, and in the wonders they wrought in Athenian life, one must admit that the Grecian religion was earnest and noble, especially in the periods before great riches and imperial ambitions had tarnished the national ideals, before Hephæstos and Ares had become the gods of devotion to practical purposes.

By "the gods of the fathers" men were offered salvation on condition that they obey, and were visited with punishment in this world and the next if they did not keep the commandments-in fact, Greek paganism was far from being the easy and lax religion that it has been thought. In the Apollonian period it was dark,