No. XIII.

Prometheus: True Teachers, their Power and their Penalty.

SOME have conceived of Prometheus chiefly as the god of Fire. But if we adopt that conceit, it must be with the full understanding of all that the ancients felt about fire. Fire dispelled darkness and conquered winter. Fire on the hearth was the very centre of domestic life; at the forge it was the very symbol of strength, for by its agency were fashioned the tools that cultivated the earth and the weapons that won battles among the nations. Fire had mysterious kinship with storms, the lightning added terror to the roar of the thunder; flames belched forth from the volcano. Moreover, fire was an apt emblem of the life of man, the life whose mortality is like its flash and sudden extinction, whose honour and immortality is like the enduring heat or the prolonged blaze. Fire was in the close keeping of the gods. But Prometheus, who had before so far identified himself with the cause of humanity that some of

the ancients believed him to be the maker of man, was resolved that some of the blessings of fire should be given to men. They were in deplorable miseries from lack of it. And so by stratagem he stole up to heaven and snatched some mystic flames from the hearth of Zeus; or, somewhat less figuratively, it is said, he kindled his bundle of birch rods at the chariot of the Sun, and brought down fire to the earth for the service of man. A true service it was, for men advanced rapidly in civilization. Prometheus had found mankind, as Eschylus says, utterly brutish and ignorant.

"Seeing, they saw in vain ;

Hearing, they heard not; but were like the shapes

Of dreams, and long time did confuse all things

At random."

But through this gift of fire they are inspired with common feeling, for each man had a share for his hearth, and each community enough for its altar. And by its celestial light they come to see things as they are. Thus Prometheus had already made them acquainted "with the secrets of nature, and taught

them to build houses, to work in wood and metals, to observe the courses of the stars, and to understand all other arts and sciences." But by this fire, stolen from heaven, he saved them from being mere cunning animals, for it showed them "celestial and eternal bonds between man and man, as of husband to wife, of father to child, of citizen to his country, and of master to his servant, without which man is but a biped without feathers."

However, mankind repaid Prometheus with ingratitude for his great gift. They arraigned him and his revelation before Zeus, indicting him for theft from the gods, and for injuring men. Zeus himself, jealous lest man should become too enlightened, and should enjoy perpetual youth, through this sacred fire, is but too ready to punish Prometheus.

He is condemned to be chained alive by Hephaistos, Vulcan, to a rock in the remote icebound chain of the Caucasian Mountains, and to endure daily agony while a vulture gnaws at his liver or his heart. Mrs. Browning thus describes "Prometheus Bound,"

ravenous bird and releases the Titan prisoner and sufferer.

When Prometheus is known and honoured among the nations, it is in religious ceremonies of great significance. The Games of the Torch are his festival. In those games, in honour of him, all who run for the prize carry lighted torches; and as any one of these torches happens to flicker because the bearer stumbles or falls, he withdraws himself, and immediately gives way to the next after him. He in his turn runs as long as he can, giving way, if need be, to another after him. He wins the prize who first brings the lighted torch to the goal.

The Myth is a suggestive parable about "True Teachers." It illustrates,—

I. THE POWER THEY EXERCISE. The way in which Prometheus obtained the fire and the uses he made of it for the human race give an exact allegory of the power of every true teacher. (1) Its source is Divine. A.s the fabled flame came from the hearth of Zeus, so all true knowledge, and even yet more clearly all true wisdom (which is the right use of knowledge), has descended from God. Does not Scripture record that the arts and agriculture and government were taught by the Holy Spirit? Is not, as Archbishop Whately has well shown, "the origin of civilization" supernatural? Not only did

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holy men of old speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," but all the light of the intellect and all the warmth of true love is obtained by man from "the secret fount of fire." "Every good gift cometh down from above." Following in one

thought the use of such power, we note-(2)_Its development is manifold. Just as in many different spheres of life and realms of influence this Promethean fire was available, so true knowledge lightens many diverse lots in human life, adapts itself whether to the housewife or the hero, to the peasant or to the prince. It blesses the hearth of the home and the altar of the temple. For, wherever we trace the teacher's power, we find (3) Its influence is beneficial. Like Prometheus "it has taught the children of men how to build themselves houses and till the earth and to win for themselves food and clothing; it has given them wise thoughts and good laws and prudent counsel, and has raised them from the life of beasts to a life which is fit for speaking men.” (4) Its work is lasting. Even on Caucasus Prometheus is full of hope; and the festivals in his memory_are festivals of torch-bearers. The work goes on, though the worker dies. Canon Kingsley nobly says what all true teachers must feel, "It is the highest pleasure a man can have who has turned down the hill at last, to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him, and catch the lamp of truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece, out of his hand before it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even feet." But while there is all this suggested about the power of true teachers, there is a severely truthful illustration of,

II. THE PENALTIES THEY ENDURE. Like the hero of our myth, they are often met with

(1) Human ingratitude. Who does not see in the thanklessness and persecution which the recipients of his celestial gifts wreaked on Prometheus, when they arraigned him before the gods as a criminal, the treatment that all genuine benefactors of the race bave endured from men. Ignorance, prejudice, envy, have in wilfulness and self-confidence and hatred heaped on the heads of the teachers either contempt and obloquy or persecution and martyrdom. What other examples are wanted than Wicklif and Galileo, Paul and Socrates, and, pre-eminently, the Lord Jesus Christ?

"And live there now such men as these

With thoughts like the great of old?

Many have died in their misery,

And left their thought untold; And many live and are ranked as mad,

And placed in the cold world's

ban,

For sending their bright, farseeing souls

Three centuries in the van. They toil in penury and grief, Unknown, if not maligned, Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the

scorn

Of the meanest of mankind." Yet the chiefest sufferings of Prometheus came, not from men, but from the gods. It was Zeus, or Jupiter, who condemned, and Aphæstos, or Vulcan, who fastened him to the rock to be gnawed by the carrion bird. And though this thought was evidently the result of their conception of the father of gods and men being very imperfect,for to them he had a devilish as well as a Divine aspect,-yet the