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Show What Exalts a Nation I BEFORE men learned of the one God they In- vented gods, so intense, in humanity is tho idea of worshiping superior beings; so intonsp is man's desire to bo linked in some form with immorlals. It was natural as man grew out of barbarism to learn to lean on a hope of a higher existence and natural to clothe that I hope in human form. Thus, perhaps, cunning priests, feeling Avithin themselves this yearning, began to cause them to give expression to the thought and the longing in various forms. Probably the sun worship was the earliest one. 'It was natural, for it represented to them the light of the world, and the warmth which insures the driving away of the winter and gives the promise of the harvest. So the emblem of the sun was the celestial character and the winged steeds making the daily circuit of the world. But the Deity most revered by the two greatest of ancient nations, was Pallas Athena. It was to 1 her that the richest offerings were made, her -i statue became in their thought their palladium. But when we search for the reason it is easily understood. Herself a virgin, she taught mothers , how to care for their young children; possessing all wisdom, she was the protectress of all the arts and industries; she invented the loom that the children of men might be clothed; she protected protect-ed the fields where plants were growing; she taught men to tame horses, and how to hitch them to chariots and in war she with helmet, spear and shield, rode in the van of battle. To a people who believed in her prowess, what wonder that she was worshipped, what wonder that temples were reared to her and offerings made! But looking deeper another meaning is discerned, for the people that possess the attributes at-tributes ascribed to Minerva make their own Palladium, Pal-ladium, and are secure against attack. The first attribute was wisdom, the second valor, the third industry, the fourth the ingenuity to make the most of the material at hand. Now, a people that possess these attributes are sure to be -invincible among nations, and hence we see in the ancient worship of the goddess merely the exemplification ex-emplification of the idea of the worshipers of what constituted greatness and insured a people against defeat. A pure life, a life devoted to industry with the genius to make available all the forces around it, and on trial always -ready 'to spring to the defense of native land. That makes the greatest citizen, and when a nation is made up of such cilizens, then they constitute their own Palladium they are always victorious. The priests that invented Pallas- Athena were wise men; they knew what attributes men should cultivate to become wise and strong and true, and so the daily ritual of their faith was a daily inspiration to them to take on more and more of those divine attributes and to more and more withdraw from all that was debasing and low. 'tJnder that worship men became exalted, In arts f and arms, they mastered the world and wrote words on the scroll of the ages which it is yet enchantment to read. |