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Rh sun, wbich now shines on us, once shone on Homer's "morning face,"—ay, and on his gray head, as he doffed his cap to receive the dole of the passing listeners, whose hearts he had fired with the exploits of Achilles, or touched with the tender tale of Hector and Andromache,—so, equally, the same Divine Sun, the same God, who now enlightens our minds, illumined his. Plato, too, and Socrates, drew all their wisdom from the same exhaustless Source. As this natural sun once shone through the groves of the Academy,—so did our God above, the one and only God, pour His own light down among the flowers of Plato's mind, giving to it all its beauty, life, and verdure. And when the wise and good Socrates calmly drank off his hemlock, who was it that sustained his firm hand and still firmer heart in that trying hour, and gave him the wisdom,—as shown in those last affecting conversations with his friends, which his disciple Plato has recorded—to see, to feel, and to bear witness to the certain existence of a recompensing God above, and to the immortality of his own soul, which was then about to pass from earth to meet that God? Who was it that thus sustained and enlightened the philosopher in his last hour? Who but He, that, four hundred years afterwards,—clothed with humanity—Himself stood upon earth, and spoke words of Divine wisdom, and performed deeds of Divine goodness and power, and then at length gave up upon the cross that human life which He had assumed, uttering dying words of forgiveness to His enemies?—"Socrates," said Rousseau, "died like a philosopher: Jesus Christ, like a God."