14 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. literature and the church were the only links which held all Greeks together. Nothing has been more potent in the preser- vation of the old Greek than the influence of the church. During the dark night which covered the land while the Turks governed it, there remained, overlooked by the conquerors, two points still faintly illuminated by the departing sun rays of liberty : the church with some privi- leges granted for political reasons, and the inac- cessible mountainous regions of old Hellas, where the bravest found refuge from bondage. More than a hundred times a year, and for hours at a time, all Greeks had to hear in their churches the fine old Greek, and principally on this account a knowledge of the old Greek was preserved through all the centuries, even among the humblest people. People, although unable either to read or to write, understood the mass very well, the sermon — in short, everything they heard in church. They could be seen in olden times gathered together and listening at- tentively to one among them possessed of a cer- tain amount of education acquired in a convent or elsewhere, explaining the difficult words or expressions. It has been said, on the other hand, that the
