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82 money; who changed a whole republic into a single family, and gave to a corrupt populace a love for their country, capable of producing such wonderful effects; who infused into a multitude a degree of valor which never yielded even on the calamitous day of Leuctra, and such mutual forbearance that no civil war broke out among them during seven hundred years, even after the decline of manners; who formed an army which never inquired how strong the enemy was, but only where he was to be found; youth full of obedience and respect for their elders, and at the same time firmly resolved to conquer or die for the liberty of Sparta; old men who, after the field of Leuctra, with only one hundred young soldiers, arrested the victorious enemy in his impetuous career; women who never repined when their sons fell for their country, but bitterly wept when they were not ashamed to survive their leader and fellow-soldiers; and, lastly, a nation eloquent in short proverbs and often in silence, in whom two thousand five hundred years have not wholly extinguished the genius of liberty!

"For after the republic, after Lacedemon itself had perished, neither the Roman power nor the turbulent and degrading sway of the Byzantine monarchy, nor the arms of the Ottoman Turks, have been able wholly to subdue the citizens of Lycurgus. The bravest among them, as the son of Agesilaus long ago counselled them, left their falling country, and fled with their wives and children to the mountains. After they had lost, all, they still saved themselves; and often they descend from the heights of Taygetus, to reap the fields which their more timid countrymen have sown for the oppressor. They still dwell in freedom on the mountains of Maina, under two chiefs, fearless of the Janissaries The Mainottes themselves are strong, warlike men, and rival their forefathers of Lacedemon."

Whence came the life of this wondrous people but from their deep theology of a Triune God, their justification by faith, and their sanctification by life? Even from the beginning, as we have seen, Apollo confesses that he is not the Absolute; for, when he touches the house of life, he suffers re-action. The sacredness of a life which neither evil nor