Excerpt from The Search After Truth: A Book of Sermons and Addresses

The Greeks were the supreme artists, poets and philosophers of antiquity. They developed beauty in every form in which beauty can exist. They lived in a climate and conditions favorable to physical develop ment, and carefully disciplined the human body in grace, speed and strength. The youth were thor oughly trained in every form of athletics and their ambitions stimulated by great rewards and honors. There probably never was in the history of the world a nation in which so large a proportion of the people were beautiful in form and feature as the men and women of Athens when Athenian civilization was at the zenith. The Greeks were the models for those statues of Zeus, Hercules, and Apollo, of Hera, Aphrodite and the Graces, which have never been sur passed and indeed only in rare epochs and instances have been rivaled.

But the Greek perfection of physical form was only a sort of natural sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The Greek mind was as wonderful as the Greek body. The simp lest and the most undeniable proof of it is the Greek language, the most perfect instrument of oratory and poetry, of science and philosophy the world ever saw. No harshness, no irregularity, no ambiguity in that perfect tongue. Phonetic spelling, euphonious sound, clear and precise meaning characterize the Greek word and sentence. The very form of the Greek let ters is an index of the beauty of the language.

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