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tutions themselves. But all these characteristics are insignificant as compared with the great governing principle of Socrates's life. This principle cannot be better represented, I think, by a modern term than by the word faith. It would be a long and arduous undertaking to prove the following statement; I shall simply make the statement and explain what I mean: The end of every conscientious man's striving to do the right is a faith in something exterior to him self. By this is meant: When a man gets an ideal of right and strives to attain it his ideal of right will constantly grow and become a higher and ever higher ideal. The more perfect this ideal becomes the less is the man satisfied with his ability to reach the absolute right. The reason for this is that he naturally becomes more and more assured that he never can know surely and unfailingly that his ideal is right. The final step, then, is a craving for something outside of himself which can be relied upon as an absolute guide. This the modern seeker after truth finds, if he find at all, in Christ, not Christ's life as an example but Christ himself, faith in whom works salvation and peace.

This exterior object of faith Socrates, not knowing Christ, found in what he reverently called his daemon. This socalled daemon (unfortunately we have no exact English equivalent) Socrates held in the highest reverence, and he said that he never failed to obey its mandates. It consisted, as he said, in a constantly recurring divine voice, always a restraining, never a positive force, yet so regular and insistent that he could never be deceived as to a course of action; for when the voice did not restrain he was always sure that his course was the right one.

Although invariably obedient to this divine inspiration, Socrates was in the habit of referring to it in a familiar even playful manner, and this external attitude of his toward the daemon has led some to doubt his seriousness in regard to it and to believe that it was only one of Socrates's metaphorical ways of speaking. And yet his avowed dependence upon this voice for all his actions can leave but little doubt

that it was not only a real thing to him but the great active principle of his life. That this daemon corresponded to the faith in something external which most great moralists have sometime found I draw from the following: Socrates constantly averred that the only respect in which he was superior to others in knowledge was that he knew that he knew nothing, while other men thought that they knew something; and the great mission of Socrates's life, as he conceived it, was that he should go about the city convincing men of their ignorance.

Let us apply now the moral principle mentioned above to the mental character of Socrates. Morals were his whole concern; he was an ethical teacher, he professed to subordinate everything to the right knowledge and the right action; as far as we can see he succeeded in doing so in his own life. In avowing, then, that he knew nothing Socrates must have meant primarily that he knew nothing morally. I take it that thus he had come to that point where he owned his inability to find an absolute standard of right and wrong in himself, and when he came to this point the restraining voice within him provided the external criterion of which he found himself so much in need. Can anyone who believes in a merciful Father doubt that the voice was divine?

The results of this faith upon Socrates's life were tremendous. He could undoubtedly have become one of the greatest statesmen even of Greece, but his daemon forbade a public life. Indirectly his daemon drove him to his great mission -convincing men of ignorance. When he had once entered upon this course, his daemon absolutely refused to allow a withdrawal from it. By calling down upon himself the wrath of the great men whom he publicly confused and confuted he was finally brought to trial for his life, and was condemned and executed.

But the greatest result of all was that absolute regard for truth which a confident belief in a right course of action naturally produces, a sublimely noble characteristic which Socrates possessed in its fullness. All really great moral

teachers have had this absolute regard for truth, coupled with a reliance upon its final victory. Not only have they always had respect for it, but they have had a courage of conviction sufficient to induce them to stand firmly upon their principles. The strength of these great men is at last the virtue that has won for them the love and esteem of the world. Perhaps the greatest words Jesus ever uttered were those in reply to the queries of Pilate: "Thou sayest." Along with these may be reverently placed the words of St. Paul: "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear." St. Augustine, Savonarola, Huss, Wyclif, Luther with his "Here I stand, I can no other," all attained the same high standard. The strength, the sublime moral courage of these was the result of faith. May we not readily concede as much to Socrates? Groping in the dark no doubt he was, yet a true apostle of faith if ever helpless man might be.

wm Prentiss Drews

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

THIS Review, the oldest of its class in America, is now well into its eighty-fifth volume. The Publishing Agents, in their report to the General Conference of 1896, said, "The Methodist Review has always been published at a loss." That statement of fact was true for eighty-three years. It is no longer true, for the Publishing Agents reported to the Book Committee at its annual meeting last February that the Review is now paying expenses. Its circulation is larger than that of any other of its kind.

A NATURALIST ON ELOQUENCE.

THE difference between eloquence and poetry Renan thought to lie in "a peculiar harmony, a more or less sonorous ring" which belongs to the latter. Upon this the discerning comment of John Burroughs is that the "sonorous ring" belongs to eloquence, which is nearer to all mankind than is poetry, eloquence touching as it does the primal chords which are in common human nature. Many who care nothing for poetry feel the power of eloquence. Eloquence, as Burroughs says, sways both the reason and the emotions. It is "a wind that fills every sail and makes every mast bend;" it is "a torrent, a tempest, an army with banners, the burst of a hundred instruments of music;" there is "something martial in it, the roll of drums, the cry of the fife, the wheel and flash of serried ranks." It is a mighty practical force, a factor in the great world of actual affairs; its end is action; its basis is earnestness, vehemence, depth of conviction. There can be no eloquence without earnestness; a cold or languid manner goes not with it. The speech of Demosthenes was described as "vehement reasoning, without any show of art; it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continual strain of argument." Eloquence marshals together facts and considerations, imbues them with passion, and hurls them

swiftly like a charging army upon the mind of the hearer. It produces physiological effects, thrilling the nerves and stirring the blood. Burroughs thinks it must have been almost a dissipation to hear a man of great personal magnetism and vehemence of utterance, like Father Taylor; because under his tremendous rush "one's feelings and emotions were all out of their banks like the creeks in springtime."

The throb of eloquence may be felt both in prose and in verse. The prose writings of Tacitus and Gibbon and Ruskin, says Burroughs, often swell and beat with a noble eloquence. Byron is eloquent in verse, witty, brilliant, kindling the fancy and stirring the blood in a way which made Goethe say that much of Byron's poetry should have been delivered in Parliament in the form of speeches. Browning's "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" is regarded as a fine sample of poetic eloquence by John Burroughs, who says: "Of its kind there is nothing in the language to compare with it. One needs to read such a piece occasionally as a moral sanitary measure; it aerates one's emotions as a cataract does a creek." Burroughs tells us that the poetry of Scott and of Macaulay abounds in eloquence; that among our own poets Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris" thrills with fiery eloquence; that Dr. Holmes's "Old Ironsides" is a rare piece of rhymed eloquence; and that the chief value of Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," or Stedman's John Brown poem, or Randall's "Maryland," or Whitman's "Beat! Beat! Drums," is their impassioned eloquence.

It is not a wrong opinion that power and mastery in eloquence is one of the most precious of human gifts; that genuine eloquence is too rare a product to be valued lightly-a noble and elevating excitement, so good and so refreshing that whether in the pulpit or in the forum, in speech or in writing, in prose or in poetry, we lament its scarcity and long for more of it.

As a sample of prose having the "sonorous ring," Burroughs cites a passage from De Quincey's essay on "The Philosophy of Human History:"

The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now circular as a shield, orbicular as the disk of a planet; the great Julian arch was now locked into the cohesion of granite by its last keystone. From that day forward, for three hundred years, there was silence in the world; no muttering was heard; no eye winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility

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