The New Hellenism But the Romans had now reached a crisis of transition.

A more important consequence of this attitude of the ruling nation towards Hellenism was, that the process of Latinizing gained ground everywhere in Italy except where it encountered the Hellenes.

Apulia, about which, it is true, the Romans gave themselves little concern, appears at this very epoch to have been thoroughly pervaded by Hellenism, and the local civilization there seems to have attained the level of the decaying Hellenic culture by its side.

But the real struggle between Hellenism and its national antagonists during the present period was carried on in the field of faith, of manners, and of art and literature; and we must not omit to attempt some delineation of this great strife of principles, however difficult it may be to present a summary view of the myriad forms and aspects which the conflict assumed.

The old world and the new shook hands; Christianity and Hellenism kissed each other.

In a like degree, though not for the same reason, sculpture in Italy remained subordinate to architecture, until such time as the neo-Hellenism of the full Renaissance produced a crowd of pseudo-classic statues, destined to take their placesnot in churches, but in the courtyards of palaces and on the open squares of cities.

An oasis had been wrested from the Turkish wilderness, in which Hellenism could henceforth work out its own salvation untrammelled, and extend its borders little by little, until it brought within them at last the whole of its destined heritage.

Due eastward she will re-baptize the glistening city of Ala Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia, under which it held out heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin had become the capital of a Moslem principality and the Turkish avalanche had rolled past it to the sea.

Yet by far the most striking example of this attractive power in Hellenism is the history of it in 'Epirus'.

'Hellenism' and nationality have become for him identical ideas; and when at last the hour of deliverance struck, he welcomed the Greek armies that marched into his country from the south and the east, after the fall of Yannina in the spring of 1913, with the same enthusiasm with which all the enslaved populations of native Greek dialect greeted the consummation of a century's hopes.

The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the 'Hellenism' of the Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem neighbours on the north.

Western Europe is apt to depreciate modern 'Hellenism', chiefly because its ambitious denomination rather ludicrously challenges comparison with a vanished glory, while any one who has studied its rise must perceive that it has little more claim than western Europe itself to be the peculiar heir of ancient Greek culture.

And yet this Hellenism of recent growth has a genuine vitality of its own.

The Vlachs again, a Romance-speaking tribe of nomadic shepherds who have wandered as far south as Akarnania and the shores of the Korinthian Gulf, are settling down there to the agricultural life of the Greek village, so that Hellenism stands to them for the transition to a higher social phase.

Yet even this dwindling rear-guard has been overtaken just in time by the returning current of national life, bringing with it the Greek school, and with the school a community of outlook with Hellenism the world over.

On this unity modern Hellenism has concentrated its efforts, and after nearly a century of ineffective endeavour it has been brought by the statesmanship of Venezelos within sight of its goal.

Under Venezelos' guidance we cannot doubt that the heart's desire of Hellenism will be accomplished at the impending European settlement by the final consolidation of the Hellenic national state.

Now that this solution is at hand, will Hellenism prove capable of casting out these two evils, and adapt itself with strength renewed to the new phase of development that lies before it?

Modern Hellenism breathes the inconscionable spirit of the émigré.'

It is a strange experience to spend a night in some remote mountain-village of Greece, and see Americanism and Hellenism face to face.

Hellenism is represented by the village schoolmaster.

This is the gospel of Americanism, and unlike Hellenism, which spread downwards from the patriarch's residence and the merchant's counting-house, it is being preached in all the villages of the land by the least prejudiced and most enterprising of their sons (for it is these who answer America's call); and spreading upward from the peasant towards the professor in the university and the politician in parliament.

Will this new leaven conquer, and cast out the stale leaven of Hellenism before it sours the loaf?

These were St. Peter's congeners at Rome, whose ideas and claims, "timid trimmer" though he was, he came to Rome to support against the Hellenism and Protestantism of St. Paul.

So this house was not so alien to me as all else I had seen in London; and perhaps the cosmopolitanism of this charming Jew, his Hellenism, in fact, was a sort of plank whereon I might pass and enter again into English life.