an "inspiration," and others would call "grace." Yet Socrates himself,
with passions and appetites as great as Alcibiades, restrained
them,--was assisted to do so by that divine Power which he recognized,
and probably adored. How far he felt his personal responsibility to this
Power I do not know. The sense of personal responsibility to God is one
of the highest manifestations of Christian life, and implies a
recognition of God as a personality, as a moral governor whose eye is
everywhere, and whose commands are absolute. Many have a vague idea of
Providence as pervading and ruling the universe, without a sense of
personal responsibility to Him; in other words, without a "fear" of Him,
such as Moses taught, and which is represented by David as "the
beginning of wisdom,"--the fear to do wrong, not only because it is
wrong, but also because it is displeasing to Him who can both punish and
reward. I do not believe that Socrates had this idea of God; but I do
believe that he recognized His existence and providence. Most people in
Greece and Rome had religious instincts, and believed in supernatural
forces, who exercised an influence over their destiny,--although they
called them "gods," or divinities, and not _the_ "God Almighty" whom
Moses taught. The existence of temples, the offices of priests, and the
consultation of oracles and soothsayers, all point to this. And the
people not only believed in the existence of these supernatural powers,
to whom they erected temples and statues, but many of them believed in a
future state of rewards and punishments,--otherwise the names of Minos
and Rhadamanthus and other judges of the dead are unintelligible.
Paganism and mythology did not deny the existence and power of
gods,--yea, the immortal gods; they only multiplied their number,
representing them as avenging deities with human passions and frailties,
and offering to them gross and superstitious rites of worship. They had
imperfect and even degrading ideas of the gods, but acknowledged their
existence and their power. Socrates emancipated himself from these
degrading superstitions, and had a loftier idea of God than the people,
or he would not have been accused of impiety,--that is, a dissent from
the popular belief; although there is one thing which I cannot
understand in his life, and cannot harmonize with his general
teachings,--that in his last hours his last act was to command the
sacrifice of a cock to Aesculapius.

But w