thout having ever heard of the true God, he still believed
in him. Nearly four centuries before the coming of Christ, when people
believed in revenge, he preached the doctrine of "Love one another" and
"Do good to them that hate you."

But, in spite of all his goodness and constant uprightness, Socrates the
philosopher was condemned to the shameful death of a base criminal.

Now, in Greece, criminals were forced to drink a cup of deadly poison at
sunset on the day of their condemnation, and there was generally but a
few hours' delay between the sentence and its execution. But the law
said that during one month in the year no such punishment should be
inflicted. This was while an Athenian vessel was away on a voyage to
the Island of De'los to bear the annual offerings to Apollo's shrine.

As Socrates was tried and condemned at this season, the people were
forced to await the return of the vessel before they could kill him: so
they put him in prison. Here he was chained fast, yet his friends were
allowed to visit him and to talk with him.

Day after day the small band of his pupils gathered around him in
prison; and, as some of them were very rich, they bribed the jailer, and
arranged everything for their beloved master's escape.

When the time came, and Socrates was told that he could leave the prison
unseen, and be taken to a place of safety, he refused to go, saying that
it would be against the law, which he had never yet disobeyed.

In vain his friends and disciples begged him to save his life: he would
not consent. Then Cri'to, one of his pupils, began to weep, in his
distress, and exclaimed indignantly, "Master, will you then remain here,
and die innocent?"

"Of course," replied Socrates, gravely. "Would you rather I should die
guilty?"

Then, gathering his disciples around him, he began to talk to them in
the most beautiful and solemn way about life and death, and especially
about the immortality of the soul.

This last conversation of Socrates was so attentively listened to by his
disciple Plato, the wisest among them all, that he afterward wrote it
down from memory almost word for word, and thus kept it so that we can
still read it.

[Illustration: Socrates' Farewell.]

As the sun was slowly setting on that last day, the sacred vessel came
back from Delos. The time of waiting was ended, and now the prisoner
must die. The jailer interrupted this beautiful last talk, and entered
the cell, bringing the