[1] The civilisation of Greece and Rome did not affect anything
in the way for changing spiritual death into spiritual
life. The utmost which it succeeded in effecting was to
cover the frightful corruption of death with a more
beautiful funeral pall--to hide the naked hideousness of
sin behind a veil spangled with silver, and gold, and
precious stones. But death was there none the less, and sin
of such a kind that the foulest impurities of the most
degraded heathen could not exceed the impurities of Athens
and of Rome. The old lesson is being taught us, if we would
but learn it, in our own day. It is not civilisation that
can change the moral desolation of France, of Spain, of
Austria. It is not civilisation, as understood by men of
science and doctrinaire philosophers, that can change the
moral wilderness existing in our large cities, and in much
of our rural population. It will only do what it did in
Greece; it will merely cover the ghastliness of death with
a more decent covering.--_Kay._
[2] See outlines on pp. 364, 365 (THE MORAL WILDERNESS
TRANSFORMED and PEACE THE WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS).