The Land of the Gods

THE first book I ever read was sop's Fables. Æsop was a slave who lived in a little country called Greece. sop the slave wrote such famous fables that his master set him free. The book I read was in English, but the Fables were first written in Greek.

Greece is so small that if I pointed to it on the map down at the corner of Europe it would be entirely covered by the tip of my finger. But small as it is, it was at one time the greatest country, its people were the greatest people, and its language the greatest language in the World. When the rest of the people in Europe were ignorant savages the people in Greece were writing the greatest books, building the most beautiful buildings, making the most beautiful statues, and teaching the most famous schools that have ever been. There is one Book that was first written in Greek but is now printed in over eight hundred languages, and more people have read it than any other book in the World. It's the Bible—the New Testament part.

But the people of Greece didn't at first believe in the Bible or Christ. They didn't believe in only one god but in many gods, who they said lived above the clouds on the top of a mountain called Olympus. The mountain is still there, but if you should climb to the top you wouldn’t find any gods. When the sun shone the Greeks said that the god Apollo was driving his golden chariot across the sky. When the rain fell they said another god, Jupiter, was watering the earth, and when the lightning flashed they said he was angry and throwing thunderbolts.