am going to tell you the history of the most wonderful people who ever lived. But I have tobegin with a good deal that is not true; for the people who descended from Japhet's sonJavan, and lived in the beautiful islands and peninsulas called Greece, were not trained inthe knowledge of God like the Israelites, but had to guess for themselves. They madestrange stories, partly from the old beliefs they brought from the east, partly from theirways of speaking of the powers of nature-sky, sun, moon, stars, and clouds-as if theywere real beings, and so again of good or bad qualities as beings also, and partly from oldstories about their forefathers. These stories got mixed up with their belief, and came to bepart of their religion and history; and they wrote beautiful poems about them, and madesuch lovely statues in their honour, that nobody can understand anything about art orlearning who has not learnt these stories. I must begin with trying to tell you a few of them.