Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/28

6 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. It is impossible reasonably to dispute the fact that the Greek language of to-day is an uninter- rupted continuation of ancient Greek. The liv- ing Greek of to-day shows much less deviation from the Greek of two thousand and more years ago than any other European language shows in the course of centuries. In the great days of Greece, when its literary works received the applause and admiration of enlightened scholars, authors took great pains to write well, fearing that they might be de- spised or forgotten. This emulation produced great works. The language was at its greatest perfection. Every writer found the beautiful form for his thoughts and for the expression of his ideas. Inevitable vicissitudes, in the first instance of civil dissensions, have gradually led to decadence. Literature received less and less serious attention. Poetry was first to decline. Orators and historians were replaced by speakers and chroniclers. Poly bins, the historian (204- 122 B.C.), complained of the difficulty he had of putting a nice thought into equally nice form, and he asks his readers not to pay so much at- tention to the form as to the contents of his writ- ings. Such a request could never have been made by Thucydides or Demosthenes. The